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THE PSYCHOLOGY 



OF 



fROEBEL'S PLAY-GIFTS. 



BY 
DENTON J. SNIDER, 

Of the Chicago Kindergarden College. 



SIGMA PUBLISHING CO., 

St. Louis, Mo., 210 Pine St. 

Chicago, Ills., 10 Van Buren St. 

(For Bale by A. C. M'Clurg & Co., Booksellers, Chicago, Ills.) 



W\ 



TWO COf>lES RECEIVED, » « 

L/brary of Congrast c.'/^ 

Office of the '^^ 

FP 2 11900 

Hegleter of Copyrlghfi^ 



54261 



Copyright by D. J. Snider, 1900. 



b&OwixJ OvJr*!, 






6 2^7 



ffO 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Introduction v 

Chapter First. 

The First Gift (Potential) 1 

TheBaU 8 

Psychology of the Ball 20 

General Terms 31 

The Ball in relation to the external 

world . . .' 38 

(iii) 



iv TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Chapter Second. 

The Gifts (Quantatitive) . : . . . 42 

I. The Second Gift (Originative) . .49 

II. The Derived Gifts 101 

A. Concrete Magnitude . . . 103 

1. The rectilineal series . . 105 

2. The curvilineal series . 168 

3. Unification . . . . . 178 
ip. Abstract Magnitude . . 187 

1. The Surface .... 200 

2. The Line 229 

3. The Point 251 

C. From Abstract to Concrete . 266 

III. Eet urn to the Originative Gift . .270 

Chapter Third. 

The Occupations ........ 288 

I. The Plastic Occupation . . . .316 

n. The Industrial Occupations . . .339 

1. The Plastic Industrial Occupa- 

tion 347 

2. The Useful Industrial Occupa- 

tions ... * 354 

3. The Graphic Industrial Occu- 

pation 369 

III. The Graphic Occupation .... 374 



INTRODUCTION. 

Under the title of Play-gifts we include that 
portion of Froebel's work usually called the 
Gifts and Occupations, such as are employed in 
the kindergarden. The attempt is here made to 
organize them according to their fundamental 
principle, and thereby to put them into their 
psychological order, which will show their educa- 
tive value. 

The appreciation of the worth of the child, 
which seems just now to be dawning upon man- 
kind in all its splendor and fullness of meaning, 
is one of the greatest facts of our time, and is 
its supreme educational fact. The movement is 
an outcome of the ao^e, but it finds its mio^htiest 
expression in Froebel, who was filled with the 

(V) 



vi THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

idea and gave to it his life. Moreover, he was 
the first man who in any adequate sense devel- 
oped the instrumentalities for unfolding the child 
in harmony with its own nature. Such is the 
purpose of these Play-gifts. 

Still, much remains to be done. The kinder- 
garden is as yet hardly more than the seed-corn 
whose planting is to be completed by the incom- 
ing generation, with the happy prospect of a vast 
harvest in the future. One of its advances must 
be in the way of theoretic formulation, which 
Froebel did not, and probably could not, give. 
Froebel is not to be regarded as a very successful 
f ormulator of psychology, even of that psychology 
which lies at the basis of his own work. He was 
a great maker of educational instrumentalities for 
developing the child, in fact the very greatest in 
history; but he never did give, and apparently 
could not give, an organized expression of what 
he had done. Rightly taken, he was a far better 
thinker with his hands than with his brains. 

It may seem presumption to some ardent dis- 
ciples to try to improve upon Froebel. But the 
business of writing has in it always a concealed 
vanity. The author of a book must have a lurk- 
ing egotism that he is going to do something 
which nobody else in all antecedent time has 
done. He may be mistaken, usually is; still he 
would not write and certainly ought not to write 
his book unless he believes that he is al)le to do 



FBOEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— INTBODUCTION. vii 

a better thing than any of his predecessors has 
done. So much of self-esteem may be pre-sup- 
posed by the very act of taking pen in hand. 

Still this book claims to be emphatically Froe- 
belian, resting upon faith in Froebel's work, and 
deeming him the greatest of all modern educa- 
tors. Let us express our position in this regard 
a little more fully. 

In the kindergarden world of to-day there are 
three main attitudes towards Froebel: the sta- 
tionary, the evolutionary, and the revolutionary. 

To the first class belong the literalists, who by 
word and deed show that their belief is that the 
child exists simply for the kindergarden, and not 
the kindergarden for the child. There must be 
no change from the transmitted text, no variation 
from the established ritual, unless the audacious 
innovator wishes to be put down among the 
burning heresiarchs in a nether circle of the 
kindergarden Inferno. Instead of Froebel's 
motto : ** Come, let us live for the children," we 
seem to hear this revised edition: «' Come, let 
the children live for Froebel." In such fashion 
the crystallized formalists, unconsciously, doubt- 
less, turn their master's doctrine inside out, con- 
tradict it in its very heart, pervert Froebel till 
he would not know himself. To this class the 
present book has no ambition to belong. 

Then there is just the opposite class, the revo- 
lutionists, who react so strongly from the fore- 



Vlii THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

going f eticli -worshipers, that they rush head- 
long to the opposite extreme, and become 
followers of the Destroyer, veritably the Satanic 
element of the kindergarden. It may be ques- 
tioned if these should still be called kindergard- 
ners, their object being to destroy the kinder- 
garden. They are the Froebelians who are 
doing their best" to dethrone Froebel," bearing 
a strong family resemblance to those fallen 
angels of the old Mythus, those children of God 
who conspired to dethrone God. Of course the 
present book would not for the world enroll itself 
in this class. 

Finally there is the middle or mediating class, 
which insists upon being neither stationary nor 
revolutionary, but evolutionary, unfolding with 
the progress of the time, keeping step to the 
spirit of the age, whose watchword is evolution 
in its widest and worthiest meaning. Here we 
place ourselves, worshiping neither the fetich on 
the one hand nor the fiend on the other. Our 
belief is that Froebel has given to the world a 
seed-thought which is to be developed into its 
fullness by and in the great kindergarden organ- 
ism, whose principle of existence must be growth, 
not being crystallized on the one hand, not being 
destructive on the other. 

We have placed all the Gifts and Occupations 
under the much-needed common name of Ph\y- 
gifts {Spidgaben)^ which name comes from their 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— INTRODUCTION, ix: 

inventor. We also put the whole stress of our 
book upon the Psychology of the Play -gifts in 
their immediate genesis. Hence it comes that 
we have very little to say of what may be called 
the Morphology of the Play-gifts, which deals 
with the manifold combinations of these Forms 
after they have been generated. That is, we do 
not try to teach the manipulation of the Gifts 
and Occupations, we say nothing of those well- 
known Froebelian terms : Forms of Life, Forms 
of Beauty, Forms of Knowledge. These are the 
proper theme of Morphology, or the Science of 
Form. 

Undoubtedly Morphology is based upon a psy- 
chical process, like everything else in the world; 
there is a psychology of all these combinations 
of Forms in both the Gifts and Occupations. 
But, as before said, this part of the subject lies 
outside of the present treatise, though it may be 
our portion to take up the same hereafter. Still, 
if the eager student desires at once a more exact 
nomenclature for expressing these two divisions, 
let them be named, first, the Psychology of the 
Method of the Play -gifts (Methodology), and, 
secondly, the Psychology of the Forms of the 
Play-gifts (Morphology). 

The psychical movement of thought here 
employed is often deemed unreal, far-fetched, 
fantastic. To the sensuous mind all thinking 
appears fantastic and is so branded by it, at times 



X THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Trith a considerable outpour of insulted dignity 
proceeding from a profound feeling of its own 
ignorance. But how can the case be helped? 
To the senses thought must seem merely a prod- 
uct of subjective fancy turned loose and allowed 
to roam at will in the fields of No Man's Land. 
That thought is creative, creating anew the ob- 
jective world of things, the sensuous mind can- 
not conceive, because it cannot truly conceive 
(grasp creatively) anything whatsoever. True 
conception is not simply an imaging, but an ideal 
creation of the object. 

So Psychology has here the emphasis, and well 
it may have, being that science in which the 
spirit of the age just at present is most busily 
and most deeply mirroring itself. But what 
Psychology — whose ? Not the old rational Ps}'- 
chology nor the new physiological Psychology, 
thouo^h both have brous^ht and delivered their 
message. Not the Spencerian, Herbartian, or 
Hegelian Psychology, though each has its place 
in the history of the science. The psychological 
formulation of the present book is taken directlj^ 
from the form of mind itself, from the Ego with 
its threefold process inherent in every act of 
cognition. (For a fuller development of this 
view of Psychology, the author must refer to his 
work. Psychology and the Psychosis.) 

Still, the earnest kindergardner, free of all the 
schools of Psychology and innocent of its detailed . 



FBOEBEL\S PLAY GIFTS.— INTRODUCTION, xi 

study, can, we believe, get the bearing of the 
present book with a fair degree of application. 
Undoubtedly the procedure is carefully ordered, 
and such procedure has to have its nomenclature 
at every important step, but the object of this 
nomenclature is to give clearness and definiteness 
to the somewhat complicated movement of the 
thought. So, what at first seems an obstacle 
may at last turn out a friend in disguise. 

On one point, however, we confess ourselves 
to be in open revolt against kindergarden usage, 
and refuse submission. It is in the spelling of 
the word hindergardner ; we cannot bring our- 
selves to associate with that awful linguistic 
monstrosity hindergartner, which is neither Ger- 
man nor English, nor of any other known speech, 
being an unearthly hybrid comparable only to 
those monsters, half-man, half-beast, which 
Dante saw in the ditches of the infernal world. 
The full German word Kinder gdrtnerinn has 
been introduced into some writinojs in Ensrlish 
(for instance by Miss Lyschinska). This recog- 
nizes the trouble, but does not solve it satisfac- 
torily, in our opinion. The word hindergarte^i 
might pass in English, but the change in its 
derivative involves it also. We are aware of the 
objection to this spelling of ours, namely, that a 
German and an English word are united in a 
compound, but really garden is likewise German 
(Saxon, Platt-deutsch), and though it be spelt 



xii PSYCHOLOGY OF FBOEBEU S PLAY GIFTS. 

with a t, this is almost universally pronounced as a 
d among English-speaking people. At any rate we 
cannot be brouofht to desicrnate any human being 
by such a monstrous name, certainly not those 
whom we confess to be the nearest and dearest to 
us of all sublunary beings, namely the kinder- 
gardners. 

Coming back to the Play-gifts, we shall divide 
them primarily into three grand divisions, to each 
of which we shall devote a chapter. These will 
be set forth in the following order : — 

Chap. I. The First Gift (Potential Gift). 

Chap. II. The other Gifts (Quantitative 
Gifts). 

Chap. III. The Occupations (Qualitative 
Gifts). 

It will be observed that we have placed the 
First Gift in a Chapter by itself, parallel with 
the other two divisions. The ground of this 
classification is to be unfolded in the course of 
the following exposition, so that we may now 
drop all further preliminaries and come to the 
main business at once. 



CHAPTER FIRST, 

THE FIRST GIFT (POTENTIAL). 

We have already stated that the First Gift is 
put into a chapter by itself, co-ordinate with the 
two other chapters of the present book. Within 
itself it has no genetic movement like the Second 
Gift ; it remains implicit, potential, undeveloped, 
or at least mainly so. Its six Balls cannot be 
said to be derived, one from the other, in any 
way; they are chiefly repetitions, one of the 
other, the chief difference being that of color. 

Still, in this Gift we shall begin to find the 
inkier educative process which belongs to all the 
Play-gifts of Fro^bel. Here we shall have to 
consider the Ball, which shows in its conception 
an external 'psychical movement which corre- 
sponds to the child's mind, and so calls it forth, 
educates it in its primal stage. 



2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

The First Gift consists of six Balls, covered 
with a soft netting of worsted, elastic, showing 
six colors of the spectrum — the primary, red, 
yellow, blue — and the secondary, green, violet, 
orange. 

If we notice more closely the leading items of 
this Gift, we find the foUowing: (1) The Ball- 
is, first, " the symbol of unity," as Froebel 
often declares; (2) multiplicity, however, is 
brought into this unity by the six Balls ; ( 3 ) a 
unity of qualities is maintained in the six Balls, 
they are alike in size, form, softness, elasticit}^ 
etc. ; (4) multiphcity, however, is brought into 
this qualitative unity by color, each Ball being of 
a different color. 

Thus we find, after a little analysis, a double 
unity and a double multiplicity (or difference), 
the one being quantitative, and the other quali- 
tative. 

Accordingly there is a suggestion or intimation 
in this First Gift of the two grand divisions 
which are to follow, in general called the Gifts 
and Occupations. The former are quantitative, 
primarily geometrical, and may be at times 
named the geometric Gifts, yet they have a 
strong current of arithmetic (counting) under- 
neath; the latter, the Occupations, we shall see, 
are chiefly concerned with the qualities or prop- 
erties of bodies. 

Of course, it will be understood that what we 



FBOEBEUS PL Ay GIFTS. — THE FIB ST. 3 

here have said concerning the First Gift is not yet 
unfolded — is still implicit within the same ; in 
fact, the object of the present book is to develop 
these faint intimations into something like full- 
ness and completeness. In profound harmony, 
therefore, with child-nature and with his own 
nature (the two were grown together in him), 
Froebel has begun his whole series of Gifts with 
the one Avhich may be considered the Gift of 
Anticipation (Ahming). 

We have, for this reason, placed the First 
Gift as the grand overture and introduction to all 
the rest — namely, the Gifts and Occupations. 
It is not merely the first of the Gifts, though it 
be that too ; it is also the first division of the 
entire theme, and is co-ordinate with the other 
two divisions. It shares, by a kind of instinct, 
in the characteristics of both Gifts and Occu- 
pations, it is the germ of which they are the 
unfolding. 

Here, then. Lies the primal unconscious 
thought, the ideal creative principle, as yet un- 
developed, implicit, premonitory — the faint, 
prophetic foreshadowing of what is to be. It is 
the infantile lisp which has babbling within itself 
the coming word and all that human speech can 
utter. It is supremely the Gift belonging to 
babydom, intended for the nursery mainly, and 
giving echo in its deepest note to the new-born 
soul. The first Gift is, therefore, a kind of 



4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

speech, endowed with a voice intelligible to the 
speechless infant (m and fans), and calling it 
forth, educating it (e and duco) into its earliest 
seK-utterance, into the primal expression of its 
Ego. 

Now we have to select a name for this First 
Gift, a name which will be most significant of its 
character. Among the many epithets applicable 
to it, our vote is for the word potential , designat- 
ing the fact that it is a potentiahty, not yet a 
reality, yet always working to make itseK real. 
Accordingly, we shall call this First Gift tJie 
Potential Gift. It connects with the quantita- 
tive Gifts directly through the Ball, out of which 
the latter are deduced ; then it connects with the 
Occupations (qualitative Gifts) through the prop- 
erties of matter common to both. All of which 
is, of course, to be unfolded in the forthcoming 
exposition. 

The fundamental character of the First Gift is, 
therefore, that it is a potentiality, undeveloped 
yet developing, implicit yet becoming explicit. 
In psychological speech, it is the first or imme- 
diate stage of the Psychosis. 

It may be aflSrmed with truth that the First 
Gift, as the Potential Gift, above all others is in 
the deepest correspondence with the infant, who 
is supremely a potential being, the unrealized 
man, and yet contains the germs of all culture, 
the possibility of all progress. Take the Ball; 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIB ST. 5 

it is the child's first plaything, the earliest friend 
who can talk to the new unspoken soul, itself in- 
capable of talking. But the Ball is not dropped 
with the passing of infancy ; it goes out of the 
nursery into the kindergarten ; beyond the kin- 
dergarten it flies into the hands of the schoolboy ; 
from youth it passes into the recreations of even 
the grown man. Thus the Ball is a universal 
plaything, perpetuating itself through several 
ages of the human being. Still it keeps its po- 
tential character to the last. For the grown 
man too has his potential element hovering ob- 
scurely around all that he may have realized or 
can realize ; enveloping his sphere of conscious 
life lies a vast, quite illimitable periphery of un- 
conscious existence, in which lurk, darkly fer- 
menting, all the possibihties of himseK and of his 
race, as well as all the inheritances, still dimly 
working in him, of that by-gone world from 
which he has sprung. So the Ball, as a repre- 
sentative of the grand human potentiahty, is not 
so easily superannuated. 

There is something in the nature of affection 
in the Ball when taken into your hand, especially 
one of these soft, pliable, responsive Balls of the 
First Gift. Do you not feel its gentle pressure 
upon your palm? It is trying to join hands with 
you in friendship by its first act, and you cannot 
help responding with a slight caress ; your very 
organism must give answer with a little kiss. 



6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

You cannot blame your hand if it soon closes 
more passionately upon that Ball, with an eager 
embrace, to which the latter replies by a stronger 
and warmer osculation imparted to your palm and 
fingers. There is in it a yielding yet deeply re- 
sponsive nature — it loves you and how can jou 
help loving it? You nestle it, you coddle it, you 
rock it and swing it with both hands, you toss it 
up into the air like a baby and catch it coming 
down with a smile. It has all sorts of domestic 
suggestions — that of a nest with its birdling ; 
you can house it between your palms in a cosy 
little home. 

To the child the Ball lives, from the start he 
regards it as an animated thing, and does not get 
over his living intercourse with it for a long time . 
And certainly for him it has a voice, speaking to 
him, and calling him out of his dumb self, com- 
municating to him important matters otherwise 
unutterable. And I have seen the kindergardner 
play with the Ball in such a sympathetic manner 
that her radiant face showed that she had re- 
turned into the soul of infancy and was taking 
deep draughts from that primal fountain of 
joy and hope along with the little ones over 
Avhom she had guidance. 

Looking: a^ain at the First Gift we see that it 
contains more or less implicitly both the Gifts 
and the Occupations, both the quantitative and 
the qualitative elements, which are to unfold out 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIBST. 7 

of it into reality. The Ball connects it with the 
Second Gift; while color, elasticity, and other 
properties suggest the Occupations. Yet the 
First Gift is a sense-gift, immediate ; it has not 
the reproductive principle which characterizes 
the Occupations. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 



THE BALL. 

There are certain characteristics of the Ball 
which the kindero^artiier will take delisfht in 
thinking out, as this plaything is the starting- 
point, and, in fact, generative principle of a large 
portion of her vocation. It begins so many 
things in her work that it comes to possess a 
peculiar fascination for her mind. Here, too, it 
is proper to note with what love and fullness 
Froebel has treated of the Ball in his writino^s. 

We shall append at this place some cardinal 
thoughts upon the Ball. 

1. The first statement usually made about the 
Ball, is that it shows unity. But what kind of 
unity or oneness? For there is a kind of unity 
which is dead, lifeless, without process; then 
there is just the opposite kind, manifesting all 
the movement and richness of the spirit. Let us 
think. 

The Ball is, in the first place, round, when 
considered as a whole ; it has no developed point 
or line, no edge; the one center controls the 
periphery through the radius. Such is the con- 
ception of the unity of the Ball. It is self-cen- 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS— THE FIRST. 9 

tered; its outer manifestation is determined by 
the one central principle, always equidistant 
from the surface. 

Like the seK-centered human being ( or Ego ) , 
its outward seeming or conduct is ruled by the 
one controlling center within. Thus it suggests 
the self-contained element in man, the possibility 
of moral control. The thought of the Ball 
always brings it back into relation with itself; 
so it evokes the conception of the self -related, 
the self-determined, which is just the process of 
freedom. 

Doubtless some reader of ours will think these 
terms and these ideas as very abstruse speculation 
about a very simple thing. But they all seek to 
express the one fundamental thought which 
utters itself in the unity of the Ball. We must 
also add, that this thought is not lifeless, but is 
a process. 

2. The Ball has only surface manifested, and 
this is unlimited surface, that is, nothmited any- 
where by point or line. Hence the Ball has been 
sometimes taken as the symbol of the Unlimited, 
the Infinite — yes, the Divine. Points and Lines 
by the millions are implicit in it — potentialities 
which are to become realities. 

3. The Ball is, accordingly, a small universe 
of possibilities. It is the possibility of all points 
and Hues and /bounded surfaces, hence of all 
forms. Being round, it is also the possibility of 



10 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

all directions ; it may turn itseK any whither if 
not stopped by some developed point or Hne. 
This is its mobihty and has a close correspond- 
ence to the child-mind, which is likewise an in- 
finite possibility of direction. What turn will 
this infantile soul take in its unfolding? As yet, 
it is potentially all, it is the round rolling Ball, 
or at least the inner counterpart thereof. No 
wonder that the Ball speaks to the infant in the 
cradle as nothing else can, declaring in all its 
motions as well as in its shape its kinship to 
that seedling of a soul recently become visible in 
flesh. 

4. We must also think, that the Ball through 
its external rotundity suggests everywhere the 
return into self, which is the fundamental fact in 
the process of the Ego, and hence the basic 
principle in every psychological movement. 

5. The seen rotundity of the Ball gives a sug- 
gestion of the unseen center, which is the point 
within, and is ideal. The visible manifestation, 
which is here the round surface of the Ball, calls 
up in the soul of the child the invisible center 
which determines that round surface. That 
which is seen goes back to that which is unseen 
as its source, cause, determinant. 

In like manner, though more dimly, the felt 
rotundity of the Ball projects darkly the inner 
central point which is unfelt as well as unseen. 
The infant, clutching in his little hand the little 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIB ST. 11 

Ball, begins to feel its rotundity; with such feel- 
ing, however faint, starts a corresponding spirit- 
ual unfolding ; the tiny fingers closing round the 
Ball feel the turn within, and have a premoni- 
tion of that inner point which determines the 
outer. 

Thus the Ball by its very shape opens the 
soul's anticipation through the senses, in fact, 
through the very humblest, least definite of the 
senses, that of touch. The Ball seems to have 
the power of breaking the spirit' s shell and letting 
the chick out. 

And here we may be permitted to give a prac- 
tical suggestion. Let not the Ball be made too 
large ; the little hand or hands must be able to 
inclose it, otherwise this sense of rotundity Avill 
be dimmed or quite lost. The hand or the two 
hands surrounding the Ball make a Ball, the 
second Ball, which incloses and feels the first 
Ball, feels that this is a Ball by making itself a 
Ball for inclosing and sensing and taking up the 
same. Through such adaptation the organism 
becomes that which it seeks to make its own. S6 
the hand halls itself to receive the Ball (in some 
languages the closed fist is said to be hailed). 
Now, it is evident that if the ball be too laro-e, 
the little hand cannot perform its part, and there 
will be no sense of rotundity, or a blurred one. 

6. As the child takes up into himself rotundity, 
first through tactual and then through visual sen- 



12 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

sation, he must project its invisible counterpart, 
which is its determinant, nameljthe central point 
alread}^ mentioned. Let the sensation or feeling 
of the round be never so slight, it cannot be 
without the inner susfofestion of the center. 

But this inner central point is the negation of 
all extension and of visibility. Through the Ball 
the child's soul passes from the visible to the 
invisible, as the source and cause of the visible. 
And this invisible element is not merely negative, 
a canceling of the external and visible, but is 
positive, is truly the creative principle of the 
thing seen. For we must always keep in mind 
that the unseen central point with its radius is 
what creates the rotundity. In like manner, the 
spatial or extended is determined by what has no 
extension — the ideal point. 

Thus throuo^h the Ball the child-soul beo^ins its 
career of education, which is, in general, the rise 
from the sensuous to the supersensuous as con- 
troller, the rise from the subjection of mind to 
the mastery of mind in the realm of matter. 

7 . In this connection we may take a glance at 
Symbolism, that much-discussed doctrine in Froe- 
bel's system. Granting that his use of the word 
is not always clear, and sometimes vacillating and 
even reckless, we still may catch from our pres- 
ent standpoint a general outline of his meaning. 

The most inveterate objector to presentiment 
must confess that this ideal germ, this unsensed 



FB0EBEV8 PLAY GIFTS,— THE FIB ST. 13 

point at the center of the sphere, is in the child, 
else it could never come out of him. Otherwise he 
could never learn geometry, which must be at last 
his own inner evolution of the point, line, surface ; 
he could never acquire the idea of rotundity, and 
consequently he could never know form. 

For this reason, primarily, the Ball may be 
called symbolic. It is an outer shape which 
images the child's Ego and its process (and the 
grown man's Ego too, for that matter). The 
child plays with the Ball, and through such play 
his Self is called out of its sleep, and becomes 
active; thus self -activity begins, and the Ego is 
led to go through its own process by means of 
its outer counterpart or symbol. 

8. Thus, what we may name the external pro- 
cess of the Ball, calls forth the internal process 
of the child's Ego. This is the main educative 
fact under the present head. So there comes to 
light the connection between point and peri- 
phery, inside and outside, visible and invisible, 
ideal and real. This thought takes the form of a 
connecting line, the radius, which joins the Seen 
and the Unseen. 

In thinking, or rather sensing, the Ball, there- 
fore, we have the following process : — 

First is the outer surface or periphery, that 
which is seen or felt, hence the sensuous, the 
immediate ; it is that element which first appeals 
to the child through his senses. 



14 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Second is the opposite, that which is different 
from the sensuous and is absolute!}^ separated 
from it — the negation of surface and extension. 
This is the central point. 

Third is the return to the surface from the 
center, which creates or determines the peri- 
phery with its rotundity. 

This process we shall develop more fully here- 
after in connection with the psychology of the 
BaU. 

9 . The child has the immediate sensuous expe- 
rience of being himself the center of a Ball. 
Very early does he look up and behold the sky 
overhead, which surrounds him on all sides with 
its dome. Still he is the center always, the cen- 
ter of this hollow Ball, or half -Ball which goes 
with him everywhere and environs him in every 
direction. As he sees a little Ball outside of him- 
self held in his little hand, yet with its center 
inside, so he sees himseK inside a great Ball, he 
being himself that center. He goes forward and 
may long to reach the wall " where the world 
comes down," but it recedes as he approaches; 
let him go as far as he pleases he remains the 
center of the Ball made out of sky, he cannot 
somehow run away from his central position. 
He soon discovers that he is the determinant of 
this Ball; he makes the round dome above, the 
circling horizon 3^onder, in fact the whole over- 
arching canopy of heaven; with every step, too. 



FROEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIRST. 15 

he must make it anew, and so reconstruct and 
repossess his former possession. 

Thus the most persistent sensuous fact pres- 
ent to the vision of the child is that he is the 
central point of the material universe about him, 
which shapes itself like the inside of a Ball, and 
covers him over with a kind of protecting roof 
as far as his eye can reach. He finds that he 
lives in a Ball or Hemisphere, ever changing in 
space Avith him, yet ever remaining the same in 
all his wanderino's. So he sees in the vanishino^ 
a reappearance; in the transitory is always the 
abiding, and within such a shifting yet permanent 
world is his home, just at the heart of it. 

But he must remake it, and forever be re- 
making it — this his outermost physical environ- 
ment. Such also he is to do with all nature — 
remake it and transform it into the abode of his 
spirit. This is the meaning of our modern in- 
dustrial progress. Still further, and chiefly, the 
child is surrounded with an unseen institutional 
world, a vast overarching unseen canopy of which 
he is the center and which protects his soul, the 
invisible yet essential portion of himself. This 
institutional world also he is in the course of his 
unfolding to remake, to reform, to repossess, 
and thus to come into a true ownership of his 
spiritual inheritance. All this is again symbolic : 
his sense-world is the symbol of his spirit- world, 
suffojestino' and callino- for the unseen in the seen. 



16 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

10. We must repeat here that the word Gift 
in the present connection means something given 
in the sense of pre-established, prescribed, and 
presented in advance to the child. This is true 
of all the Gifts and Occupations, yet they have 
different degrees of prescription. In the First 
Gift the child is almost wholly the recipient 
without changing the material or the thing 
given ; still he is to move more and more toward 
making over or transforming what has been given 
him, till he gets to be the producer of his own 
world or the maker of his own presuppositions. 
Thus he is always advancing toward a completer 
freedom. 

So the child in the present Gift is essentially 
receptive. But to receive, he has to act; he 
sees, feels, tests the Ball in various ways; the 
senses and the will he employs in receiving. 
The red Ball is usually taken first, as its color is 
the most striking or stimulating to the eye which 
has to be roused from its infantile somnolescence. 
A string is attached to the Ball, showing control 
by an outside power, by a providential hand; so 
the Ball is the image of this early stage of the 
child, who soon demands that the string be put 
into his hand, that he be the controller; as fast 
as possible, he is going to be his own Providence, 
though this end he never quite attains even as a 
man. 

In the play with the Ball, motion of many 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIB ST. 17 

kinds begins to manifest itself, as the Ball is the 
possibility of all directions. Circular motion in 
which the Ball by means of the string attached 
is made to come back to its starting-point in 
space, has a special interest for the child, and inti- 
mates the free motion of the earth around the 
Sun, which he is afterwards to comprehend. 
The central luminary has its string attached to the 
little earth-ball and is pulling or rather whirling 
the same around itself in an orbit, or self-return- 
ino^ circle. Is not the Sun the brio^ht luminous 
hand of the Lord (otherwise invisible), and is 
not gravitation the string he has tied to the little 
earth-ball, which he keeps whirling around and 
around through the Heavens, possibly for the 
amusement of the baby angels up there? Thus 
our First Gift has its place in the kindergarden 
of the skies, literally full of whizzing balls en- 
circlino^ central Suns Avithout collidino^ — the 
happy stars of the firmament forever playing 
and sino^ino[ tos^ether in the celestial kinder- 
garden, which began in the primordial chorus of 
creation. 

11. A suggestion in regard to the Ball of this 
First Gift may be permitted at this point. 

It is said that the original Froebel Ball was 
wound from the center and covered with a soft 
network. The modern rubber Ball has not this 
idea of being unfolded or generated from the cen- 
ter, which idea is necessary to the genetic move- 

2 



18 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

ment of the Gift, and is what con.stitutes the 
psychical correspondence of the Ball with the 
child. 

The so-called clipped Ball, which is made of 
yarn in the form of radii springing out of the 
center, thus suo^orestino^ the movement from the 
central point outwards, has been warmly recom- 
mended for the older children in the kinder- 
garden. 

12. There is no doubt that to employ six Balls 
in the First Gift for the nursery is a mistake. 
The result is complication, confusion, and final 
aversion to the Gift ; many a kindergardner will 
confess that she, of her own accord, has reduced 
the number of these Balls in the interest of good 
work and good order. 

The proper number of Balls for this Gift, at 
least in the beginning, is three, which makes it 
far simpler and easier to handle, and moreover, 
is in harmony with the movement of the Ego it- 
self. But chiefly, there are the three primary 
colors which in the order of Nature are first and 
give the natural starting-point, forming a whole 
by themselves, nay more, a Psychosis. Then 
in due time will come the secondary colors, and 
even the tertiary, though color must not be al- 
lowed to run to excess in the kindergarden. 
Finally, for the sake of the number idea three is 
far better than any other number, being in direct 
numerical correspondence with the stages of the 



F ROE BEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIRST. 19 

child's mind, which are one, and Wo, and three, 
this last being a return and union of the other 
numbers (one and two). There can be no doubt 
that number dawns with the dawnino^ of the 
Ego and its three stages, which, when they take 
place, are faintly, unconsciously numbered by the 
child. The mind itself is stamped in its very 
creation with the number three, which it has to 
reveal when it acts and in every act. By means 
of the three Balls, each a separate unit empha- 
sized by form and color, yet all combined to- 
gether in a box and by various plays, the implicit 
number in the child's Ego is wakened out of its 
unconscious slumber and beg^ins to become ex- 
plicit. Now it is manifest that if we have more 
than three Balls, or even less than three, there is 
a lack of correspondence between the inner and 
the outer, between the Ego and the object, Avhich 
produces a jar, a discord, where there ought to 
be harmony. Though the dissonance seem 
slight, the tender budding child -mind feels it and 
is delayed. As the obstacle is not difficult to re- 
move, the kindergardner should look after this 
matter, and adjust her presentation of the First 
Gift to the psychical nature of the child. 



20 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE BALL. 

In makino: the transition from the First to the 
Second Gift, the name Ball (in German Ball) is 
changed to that of Sphere ( Kugel) . Froebel gives 
certain external distinctions between the two, such 
as softness and hardness, di:fference in elasticity, 
etc. This is well enough, but we would fain 
believe that there is some inner reason for the 
transition from Ball to Sphere. Though these 
two words are employed in common usage inter- 
changeably, we shall try to have them do service 
as bearers of two distinct meanings in the follow- 
ing exposition. 

Primarily, we are to penetrate to the concep- 
tion of the Ball, which signifies the creative 
principle of it, the thought which generates it. 
Conception is not merely the reproduced image 
of the Ball, its outward shape drawn from mem- 
ory, but the genetic energy creating it grasped 
by the mind. 

The Ego in conception enters the Ball, as it 
were, and makes the same anew after its own 
ideal process ; to conceive an object is an inner 
creation of it after the thought which originally 
made it. 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIBST. 21 

The conception of the Ball, therefore, being 
itself the movement of the Ego, will show the 
inherent psychical process thereof, namely, the 
Psychosis. 

The following exposition, which seeks to set 
forth the total conception of the Ball, mil move 
through the threefold development of it in har- 
mony with the underlying process of mind. In 
the first place, the Ball is to be grasped simply, 
as it is in itseK; secondly, it is to be seen as it 
is taken up by the child's senses and united 
with his Ego, in which stage (the separative) 
two BaUs come before us, the outer and the 
inner; thirdly, the Ego, having sensed the Ball, 
returns to it and beholds in it the movement of 
itseK in three stages, Avhich it specially desig- 
nates, thereby revealing the concrete Ball or the 
Sphere. 

Such is the transition which we shall now un- 
fold on psychological lines, marking carefully the 
various steps. The purpose is to bring out 
prominently the inner elements of the Ball, which 
are indispensable for deriving the forms of the 
Second Gift, and out of them the rest of the 
Play-gifts. 

We are, then, to witness the following 
stages : — 

I. The process of the Ball as it is in itself — 
from within outward and back again — Center, 
Periphery, Radius. 



22 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

II. The process of the Ball in relation to the 
organism — from the outside going inward and 
then back again — the sensed without, the 
unsensed within, the union of the two in the 
spherical. 

III. The process of the Sphere with its central 
Point, diametral Line, and intersecting Plane. 

These brief designations in advance are to un- 
fold into their full meaning in what follows. 
Let the student, however, note the psychical 
movement which these three stao^es suo^orest at 
the start, and observe that the whole sets forth 
the transition from the simple Ball to the con- 
crete Sphere through the intermediate process 
of the Ego. 

I. First, then, let us conceive the Ball, as it is in 
itself without any relation, as immediate. What 
are the essential factors of it? Let us take it in 
the hand and look at it closely and think ; let us 
find the elements which it must have in order to 
be. We shall observe three. 

1. The Center. This we put first, as it is first 
in thought, though not first to the senses. It is 
the determinant primarily, the genetic i)oint; 
it determines the object to be a Ball. The cre- 
ative germ of the Ball is now conceived in the 
Center. So we employ the Avord metaphorically 
when we speak of coming to the center of things. 

2. The Periphery. Tliis is that Avhich is 
determined h\ the determining Center ; hence it 



FBOEBEVS PLAT GIFTS.— THE FIRST. 23 

is the separated, not the concentrated; it is the 
opposite of the central point which is now con- 
ceived as propelled outwards in all directions to 
the limit, which is the Periphery. The inward 
Center thrown outward becomes the extended 
surface, accessible to the senses. 

3. The Radius. This is properly to be regarded 
as the return from the Periphery to the Center, 
conceived as a connecting line from the outward 
to the inward. Not till we have the Periphery 
can we explicitly have the Radius, as uniting the 
determined Periphery to the determining Center, 
though we have it implicitly in the movement 
outwards from Center to Periphery, which, how- 
ever, has to be fixed before the length of the 
Radius can be fixed. 

Such are the three simple elements of the Ball 
when taken as it is in itself. We observe in it 
the stages of the Psychosis, yet as immediate, un- 
developed. Center, Periphery, Radius enter into 
the primal conception of the Ball when unrelated ; 
but we soon find that the Ball must be related in 
order to be conceived, namely, related to the 
Ego, which must now be reached from the out- 
side, through the senses. 

II. The Ball as related to the bodily senses 
comes next in order. We have just seen the Ball 
as it is in itself ; now its relation to the organism 
is to be considered. 

For the purpose of understanding this relation 



24 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

more fully, we may regard the human organism 
as having an outer surface or Periphery in which 
are located all the senses. These are to connect 
the mind with the external world, which stimu- 
lates them by some kind of irritation, in contact 
or at a distance. This stimulation is borne to the 
brain by the afferent nerves, turns at the invisible 
central point (Ego) and is carried back to the 
Periphery by the efferent nerves, thus completing 
the cycle of sensation. 

The resemblance between this process of the 
organism and that of the Ball just given is strik- 
ins:. The human bodv is also a Ball with its 
Center as determinant, with its Periphery and its 
Eadii. But the living human Ball is a self -active 
process, self -moving, while the dead material Ball 
is the outer, externalized image, is the outered or 
othered counterpart of the unseen process. 

It may be noted here that the child of himself, 
will play that he is the Ball, he will enact its part 
and go through its motions. Thus he uncon- 
sciously reflects what his own organism is — a 
living Ball with its own Center, Periphery, and 
Radii, which unfolds into activity through playing 
Avith the Ball. Yet this is not all: the child not 
only plays with the Ball, but plays himself to be a 
Ball, converting himself into a kind of Ball in play. 
And it may be said that in every kind of Ball-play 
there are really the two Balls co-operating and 
interplaying — the animate and the inanimate. 



FBOEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIBST. 25 

Such is the stage of separation in the pres- 
ent process : the two Balls, the sensing and the 
sensed; the first takes up the second, yet is 
called into activity by the second. This relation 
and interaction between the two sides is what we 
shall next unfold. 

1. The sensed Ball, which is seen or felt. 
Now we start with the outside, the surface as 
presented to the senses. The infant closes its 
tiny fingers around the Ball, sensing the surface 
of the same ; its Periphery, overlaid with nerve 
tissue, is brought in contact with the Periphery 
of the Ball, overlaid (in this Gift) with a soft 
network of worsted, and is stimulated to activity. 

2. The unsensed element of the Ball — unseen 
or unfelt. This, of course, is the Center within, 
posited by the Ego, which also has such a Cen- 
ter, to which the stimulus goes, and which deter- 
mines the outer Periphery. Thus the sensible 
flies to the supersensible as its determinant. 
The Seen in the Ball calls for the Unseen as its 
creative principle. 

3. Rotundity or Sphericity of the Ball is now 
given as the complete process of the outer and 
inner, of the Periphery as seen and of the Center 
as unseen yet posited as the determinant of the 
Periphery. Tlius while we sense the Periphery 
and then pass to the Center, we must return 
from the Center and reconstruct this Periphery 
as a Avhole in our thought, which cannot be done 



26 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

otherwise than by thinking. For we cannot see 
or feel or sense in any way the total Periphery 
at once on the outside, some part of it lies be- 
yond the reach of the senses. So we get the 
idea of Rotundity only through the process, 
which conceives the entire Ball as created from 
the Center. 

The completed Rotundity is as necessary to the 
conception of the Ball, as the completed cycle of 
sensation is necessary to the conception of sen- 
sation. We have to create the total Rotundity 
of the Ball from within, since we can sense only 
a portion of the same ; the Ego has to make the 
same complete through its own movement. 

The Ego has now sensed the Ball and pene- 
trated to the Center, from which it has moved to 
the Periphery, thus creating the Sphere, which 
has the total process. For the Sphere cannot be 
sensed from the outside merely, it must also be 
conceived from within, created or re-created by 
the Ego. 

In our thinking we have to use terms carefully, 
and we may name the mentioned transition as 
that from the Ball to the Sphere, or from the 
abstract Ball of the first staoe to the concrete 
Ball of the third stage, to which we have now 
come. 

III. We have before us the Sphere, whose 
process we are to seek and unfold. The first or 
abstract Ball has been taken up and sensed by the 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIRST. 27 

Ego ; its elements again come to notice, but are 
endowed mth a new power, being filled with the 
creative activity of the Ego. 

1. The central Point. The Sphere has not 
simply a center, but a creatively active central 
Point, such as is the Ego itself, for the Ego is the 
self -active principle which, being stimulated by 
the external object, has gone forth out of itself 
and sensed the same. 

Now this central Point of the Sphere, in order 
to be central, must generate radii going in oppo- 
site directions, moving out from it equally. 
That is, it must generate the diameter of which 
it is the center, and which is a right line. 

The central Point will show, therefore, the 
psychical process within itself. 

First, it is seK-dividing (hke the Ego), self - 
unfolding, and projects itself outward into the 
Line. 

Secondly, it projects itself into opposite direc- 
tions, into two opposite Lines. 

Thirdly, these two Lines, however, are one 
straight Line with central Point in its middle. 

This gives a new element, the diametral Line 
of the Sphere, to Avhich we now pass. 

2. The diametral Line. The Sphere has, 
therefore, a central Point, which lies in the 
middle of its diametral Line and creates the 
same. 

Moreover, this separation of the central Point 



28 TEE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

into the diametral Line, will be threefold, or in 
three directions, all of which unite at the central 
Point and make three diametral Lines. These 
will manifest the three demensions of the Sphere, 
since they measure the separative process of the 
central Point, as it unfolds and creates the 
Sphere. 

We may note, in passing, that the necessity of 
the existence of three dimensions in the Sphere 
and in all matter goes back to the threefold 
process of the Ego which in the first place 
creates it, and in the second place conceives it 
by identifying the same with its own triple 
movement. 

The diametral Line reveals a psychical move- 
ment within itself. 

First, there is the one diametral Line, con- 
ceived as the unity of opposite directions in the 
central Point. 

Secondly, there are three ways of conceiving 
this unity of opposite directions — up and down, 
to and fro, right and left — or length, breadth, 
and height, showing the three dimensions in three 
diametral Lines. 

Thirdly, these three diametral Lines are united 
and concentrated in the central Point, through 
which they produce the right angle, in fact, the 
eight right angles possible around the center. 

But the diametral Line, sprung of the Point, 
will show the latter' s separative nature and will 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIRST. 29 

move in opposite directions, producing the Plane, 
to which we now pass. 

3. The intersecting Plane. Each of the three 
diametral Lines, having within itself the central 
genetic Point, will divide within itself and pro- 
ject itself in opposite directions through the 
Sphere. Thus the Plane appears dividing the 
Sphere according to the three dimensions 
already indicated, and becoming three intersect- 
ing Planes, which unite around the common 
central Point. 

Such is the process of the Ball into the Sphere. 
The Ball with its Center, Periphery, and Radius 
simply, is sensed and taken up by the Ego, which 
projects into the Ball its own creative movement 
and makes it a Sphere with central Point, diamet- 
ral Line, and intersecting Plane, which are thus 
the inner determining elements of the Sphere. 

Here, too, we observe the psychical Ego re- 
vealing itself in the three distinct elements of the 
Sphere. 

First, the Line, being self -separating like the 
Point, projects itself in opposite directions — up 
and down, to and fro, right and left — and then 
unites these two directions into the one Plane. 

Secondly, as there are three ways of conceiving 
this unity of opposite directions, there will be the 
division into three Planes passing through the 
Sphere. 

Thirdlv, these three Planes intersect on the 



30 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

diametral Lines at right angles, and concentrate 
around the central Point, making eight corners. 

The starting-point of the whole series of Play- 
gifts is the inner central Point of the Ball as 
genetic. This genesis will unfold till the Point 
becomes explicit (in the Tenth Gift as usually 
numbered), when it will return and generate the 
starting-point of itself in the Ball, thus producing 
the cycle of the Play-gifts. But the develop- 
ment of this subject lies ahead of us and cannot 
be adequately grasped at the present stage. 

Looking to the immediate future, however, we 
may say that the mentioned elements of the 
Sphere, namely, the central Point, the diametral 
Line, and the intersecting Plane, will retain their 
ofenetic character in the next Gift, and will ex- 
press or externalize themselves in the Cube, from 
which they will propagate their creative energy 
throuo:hout the entire series of Gifts. Herein 
lies the educative power of the Sphere, whose 
outer creative process calls forth through play 
the corresponding activity of the child. 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.- THE FIBST. 31 



GENERAL TERMS APPLIED TO THE BALL. 

We have just seen the Ego determining the 
essential elements of the Ball as an object, and 
employing terms which especially designate it. 
For Center and Periphery, Radius and Diameter 
belong peculiarly to the Ball, and properly to 
nothing else. 

But the Ego will apply to the Ball terms or 
categories which are universal, which pertain to 
all things it may conceive of ; these terms like- 
wise apply to the Ego itself conceiving all things, 
and conceiving itself. They are its most abstract 
and general terms, since they combine in one 
word all it can grasp and itself grasping all. 

We shall set down and order the most impor- 
tant of these terms here, since Froebel often uses 
them in his works and applies them to the Ball. 
They are employed to explain the Ball and other 
Gifts ; such explanation in abstract categories is 
not to be rated the best, since they themselves 
need explanation or at least derivation. And this 
brings us to the main point : such general terms 
are really derived from the Ego and used by it 
to express its own operations. Hence they must 



32 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

be brought back to it and filled with its process 
in order to mean much. That is, they are to be 
seen as a Psychosis or some phase thereof. 
Three of these most common terms we shall inter- 
relate in the process of the Ego, from which they 
are usually isolated. 

(1.) Unity. The Ball is said to have unity 
and it has ; Froebel affirms this as the funda- 
mental attribute or category of the Ball. Still 
there is something inert and lifeless in mere 
monotonous unity ; we feel that there must be 
another element in the Ball besides simple one- 
ness. Furthermore, Froebel states that the Ball 
is the symbol of unity; what does he mean? In 
our judgment he takes the Ball as an outer visible 
manifestation of something internal or spiritual, 
which must ultimately be the Ego or some phase 
of its movement. Thus the Ego asserts oneness 
of the Ball as of itseK ; the Ego is supremely one 
and the source of oneness or unity; the term 
being inherently its own, is applied to the Ball 
which is also one. Yet the Ball is something: 
else, yea the opposite. 

(2.) Diversity. The Ball has diversity, which 
is the contradictory term to unity. For in- 
stance, there is a complete diversity, and, indeed, 
opposition, between Center and Periphery, yet 
both belong to the Ball. Likewise, the Peri- 
phery has in itself diversity at every point, 
being round. 



FBOE BEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIB ST. 33 

The term diversity, as well as the thouo^ht of 
it, spring from the Ego which has in its own 
process the stage of separation, difference, diver- 
sity. There could be no such word as diversity 
predicated of the Ball, unless such predicate be- 
longed to the Ego in advance. It belongs to the 
Ball likewise, and to everything else which the 
Ego takes up and appropriates through knowing. 
Primarily, diversity pertains to the Ego, which 
projects it, or may project it, into every process 
of its own. 

Yet the Ego does not stop with diversity or 
separation. It returns out of this second stage 
to unity, which, however, is not the first simple 
unity, but a concrete unity, to which we now 
pass. 

(3.) Unification. This term is perhaps the 
best in the present connection, though others 
have been employed. The words in its compo- 
sition suggest the making of one out of what was 
not one, the going back to unity out of diversity. 
Thus it hints the total process, which is not the 
lifeless unity, but the active one — yea, the self- 
active one, which is the Ego itself. 

Sometimes the term individuality is applied to 
the present stage, audits component words suggest 
the negating of division, separation, diversity. 
The Ball is certainly an individual object, and 
within its limits it asserts its individuality. It 
resists intrusion, and in the case of the elastic 



34 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Ball, it reacts against assault and recovers itself 
with such force that it rebounds from the assail- 
ing object. 

Froebel's favorite category was perhaps just this 
term unification, or life's unification (Lebenseim- 
gung). Not simple, abstract, dead unity was this, 
but unification alive, active, uniting the diverse and 
separated parts into a process. Here, then, we 
may make an application of this Froebelian term 
and put it into relation with the other two. 

Unification, in the sense just unfolded, has in 
it not only unity, but hkemse, as already indi- 
cated, the total movement which is a return out 
of diversity to unity. Such is the inner process 
of the Ego now applied to the Ball ; but the same 
process and hence the same terms may be ap- 
phed to the knowing of any object by the Ego. 
That is, the process with its categories here given 
is universal, though now specially predicated of 
the Ball ; we may say that a stick of wood also 
has unity, diversity, and unification (or individ- 
uality). It may be asked. Why did not Froebel 
take a stick of wood as his starting-point? Be- 
cause the Ball is the most perfect manifestation 
of the Ego's movement found in Nature, as well 
as the simplest and most common. From the 
infinite multiplicity of the physical world the 
right object has to be selected, the one which 
best embodies and reflects the triple movement of 
the Ego. That object is certainly the Ball. 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIRST. 35 

Besides the mentioned abstract terms, Froebel 
employs other sets of them, usually in the form 
of a triad. Universality ., Particularity, and Sin- 
gularity (or Individuality), in one shape or 
other, are often found in his writings, notably in 
his " Education of Man." We have to confess 
that to our mind, these terms remained an alien 
element in Froebel to the last. In fact, as he 
grew older, they dropped more and more out of 
use in his writings. It is our judgment that they 
Avere philosophical terms which he picked up 
while at the University of Jena in his youth, 
chiefly from the discussions he heard at that 
time amono^ the students. ScheUino^ was lectur- 
ing then at Jena, and his was the great phi- 
losophical name, his doctrines being the theme of 
general comment and disputation. 

Like all young thinkers (and some old ones 
too) who seek to master the nomenclature of a 
great philosophy, he was mastered by it more or 
less, and the same fact may be traced in his style 
durino^ his whole life. There was somethincr in 
these abstractions which he never fully digested 
and made his own ; they were really not his best 
utterance of what was best and deepest within 
him. 

In fact one cannot help coming to the conclusion, 
after carefully studying his works both of hand 
and of head, that Froebel thought far better with 
his hand than with his head. These Gifts and 



36 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

their manipulation show order, logical sequence, 
the keenest insight into their educative meaning 
as well as into the nature of the child ; they very 
justly place Froebel's name among the greatest 
educators of the human race. But when he 
comes to tell what he has done, the word falls far 
behind the deed ; his exposition, though full of 
intuitive flashes, is deeply defective in order, 
clearness, pointedness, often repeating non- 
essentials and often omitting [essentials. Still 
Froebel's writings are to be studied and pro- 
foundly studied by the kindergardner, both for 
what they say and what they do not say ; they 
reveal much which is important for her to know, 
particularly the limits of the man. For it has 
been one of the drawbacks of the kindergarden 
that its devotees heap upon the founder the most 
indiscriminating eulogy, and thereby repel judi- 
cially-minded men by their extravagance. Ap- 
preciate by all means, first and foremost; but 
then discriminate too, if our long and deep affec- 
tion will not let us criticise. 

From the preceding remarks the reader may 
well infer that we do not intend to make much 
use of the current Froebelian abstractions in the 
forthcoming exposition. Still the attempt is to 
do justice to the thought underlying the Gifts 
and Occupations, the most fertile educative 
thought of this century already, and as yet just 
in the beginning of its career. 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIB ST. 37 

From this little excursion we feel like calling 
the reader's attention back to the Ball, and re- 
peating to him its educative principle, which was 
Froebel's great insight, and the ground of his 
selection of it as the first plaything for the child 
out of the vast treasury of nature. The Ball, 
with Center, Periphery, and Radii, is an outer 
Ego, whose supreme destiny is to call forth from 
its unconscious, undeveloped state the inner 
sleeping Ego of the infant, and through play to 
stir the same to self -activity. The Ball is, there- 
fore, educative; in fact, it is the primal educa- 
tional instrumentality for unfolding the infantile 
soul into its heritage of knowledge and power. 



38 TEE PSYCHOLOGY OF 



THE BALL IN RELATION TO THE EXTERNAL 
AVORLD. 

Hitherto we have considered the Ball as it is 
in itseK and in relation to the Ego. But it also 
stands in relation to the whole external world, and 
thereby becomes the means by which the child 
is brought to know the phenomena of nature. 
The Ball thus stands between the child-eo-o and 
the cosmos, being the mediating principle of 
both sides. 

Such is, then, the present thought: the in- 
fant through his Ball is being gently led into 
relation and communion with the whole universe. 
In one way or other this small round object, 
being external, is connected with and influenced 
by all externality, which is thus brought home to 
the child's mind. A mediatorial instrument we 
may regard the Ball, though a little plaything 
for the baby, bearing his Ego to the outer world 
and helping him grasp it and identify it with 
himself and thus to know it first in sensation, 
then in image, and finally in thought. 

This characteristic of the Ball was emphasized 
by Froebel throughout his entire kindergarden 



FBOEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— TEE FIEST. 39 

period. Says he in one of his earliest essays on 
this subject : — 

" The child is in himself unity and diversity, 
and is destined to develop these traits by means 
of the outer world, for which purpose the Ball 
with its play is adequate. 

" The Ball is the representative of all objects, 
and hence is the unity and unification of all 
properties essential to all objects. 

*' The Ball shows contents, mass, matter, 
space, size, form, figure; it shows qualities of 
bodies, elasticity, color, gravity, attraction. 

' ' The Ball is the mediating link between the 
child and nature." 

These citations (and others of like import 
might be made) indicate his view Avhen he wrote 
his first published essay on the Ball. (See 
Lange's edition of Froebel I. s. 41. Translated 
by Miss Jarvis I., p. 53. This essay was first 
printed in the Sonntagshlatt^ 1838-40.) 

From a later production of Froebel, we take a 
few extracts on the same subject : — 

" The first plaything of the child (the Ball) 
nmst be, as it were, the complete representative 
of all objects existent in space, and hence the 
bearer of all the universal properties of these 
objects. 

" The Ball is of such a character that it can- 
not hurt the child, nor can he injure himself or 
anything else with it. The Ball does not excite 



40 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

the sensual nature of the child, nor does it waken 
bad tendencies of head or heart. 

' * In the Ball are represented all the essential 
properties, phenomena, and relations of the 
child's environment, as matter, form, figure, size, 
motion of all kinds as well as repose. Also, space, 
time, light, color, are brought to the child by the 
Ball, which thus becomes for him the medium of 
introducing and knowing the surrounding world." 

So much for Froebel, who clearly saw the 
function of the Ball in the above-mentioned rela- 
tion. But that which is wanting is the order in 
which the environing world is taken up by the 
Ego of the child. Here again the psychological 
process is to furnish the ordering principle, 
which will show how the total physical universe 
in its outlines is received into the child-mind 
through the Ball. But this part of the subject 
cannot now be entered upon, though something 
about it may be given in another place. 

In conclusion, we may take a glance back over 
the total sweep of the First Gift and seek to re- 
new the various thoughts which have been set 
forth. The earnest student will reflect upon the 
following points : — 

It is the Potential Gift of the whole series of 
Gifts and Occupations. 

It is the first stage of the complete Psj^chosis 
of Froebel' s Play-gifts, namely, the Gifts and 
Occupations. 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIBST. 41 

It unfolds the psychology of the Ball in rela- 
tion to the mind of the child. 

The educative meaning of the First Gift must 
be seen in this relation. 

It shows the transition from the simple Ball 
with Center, Periphery, and Eadius, to the con- 
crete Sphere with central Point, diametral Line, 
and intersecting Plane. This is, moreover, the 
transition from the First into the Second Gift. 

Three Balls having the three primary colors 
are recommended to be given at first. 

A subject left to the further study of advanced 
kindergardners is the child getting acquainted 
with the external world through the Ball, which 
thus becomes the mediating principle between 
him and the cosmos. 

At present, however, we, having made the 
transition from the Ball to the Sphere, shall pass 
to the next grand division of our theme. 



CHAPTER SECOJSTD. 

THE GIFTS (quantitative). 

This chapter embraces the Gifts which lie be- 
tween the Sphere and the Point, or the series 
which begins with the Second Gift and ends 
with the Tenth Gift, according to the usual 
numbering. 

As already stated, the general idea underlying 
the Gift is something given, taken for granted, 
presupposed, prescribed; it is composed of fixed 
forms given to the child which he is to take and 
combine into ncAV forms through his activity, 
mental and bodily. Then he will pass to trans- 
forming his material, and to making the forms 
hitherto given, which work, however, properly 
belongs to the Occupations (qualitative Gifts). 
But the present series of Gifts (quantitative) 
(42) 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS — QUANTITA2IVE. 43 

has the principle of extension, is space-occupy- 
ing, and produces its new forms by external 
combination. 

The fundamental fact in this series of Gifts is 
its inner psychical movement, which, in deep cor- 
respondence with the movement of the child's 
mind, is threefold, and reveals what may be called 
the Psychosis of the Quantitative Gifts. 

I. The Origixatia^e Gift. This is the 
Second Gift, composed of the Sphere, Cube, and 
Cylinder. Its essential characteristic is origi- 
native, genetic ; it generates its own forms within, 
and generates in direct line the other forms of 
this series till the Point. It is thus the parent 
Gift of the whole family, in which the domestic 
relations mil often be employed by way of met- 
aphor. Also it may be deemed the potential 
Gift of this series, bearing in itself implicitly all 
those which follow. Such is the first or imme- 
diate stage, which is now to unfold; origination 
must separate from itself and pass into deriva- 
tion, which is the second or separative stage. 

II, The Derived Gifts. The name indicates 
the general character of this division of the Gifts 
which embraces all the rest of the quantitative 
series after the Originative Gift. The method 
of derivation is some form of separation, hence 
all these Gifts belong to the second or separative 
stage of the Psychosis in the present series, 
though each has its own distinctive Psychosis or 



44 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

threefold movement, all of which is to be un- 
folded hereafter. 

It may here be stated, however, that this Derived 
Series has its own threefold process, which starts 
with the Gifts of Concrete Magnitude (real or 
sensuous separation) and passes to the Gifts of 
Abstract Magnitude (ideal or mental separation), 
with the final return out of the Abstract to the 
Concrete. 

In this division lies the main body of the quan- 
titative Gifts, which unfold to the Point as 
explicit, where begins a new stage, that of 
return. 

III. The Eeturn to the Originative Gift. 
Out of Derivation we pass back to Origination 
through the Point, which, though at first 
derived, becomes self -moving and generative, 
producing the Sphere and its central Point. 
Thus we see that the movement of the quantita- 
tive Gifts is from Point to Point, going forward 
to the Point and then returning to the Point, as 
the seed unfolding through the vegetable process 
returns to the seed, producing the same, that is, 
producing itself. Such is the completed cycle 
of the Gifts, in a line of descent and of ascent 
or return, whereby the Point as explicit in the 
last of the Derived Gifts bends back, as it were, 
and connects with the Point as implicit in the 
Oriocinative Gift. 

The above indicates in brief the psychical 



FEOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— QUANTITATIVE. 45 

movement which underlies and orders the pres- 
ent (quantitative) series of Gifts, showing their 
inner conformity to the mind of the child and 
revealing the ground of their educative character. 

In every Gift as quantitative there will be 
some phase of Form, Number, Measure. 

The quantitative Gifts deal primarily with 
geometric or spatial forms, by which man gets 
the first control of external nature. The child 
must follow in his footsteps. Geometry is the 
science of Space, into whose presence the child 
is brought by the first act of his existence, the 
act of birth. The child begins his mastery of 
the space-world and with it of the whole realm 
of externality, through these Gifts, which induct 
him into the knowledge of Form. 

But they also develop in him the conception of 
Number, which is an abstraction from Form, or is 
indifferent to it. Thus he is fi^ettino; his release 
from the sense-world, and begins to employ 
abstract or ideal things. The child learns count- 
ing in these Gifts, and becomes acquainted with 
the integer and the fraction. Arithmetical 
operations he performs with the blocks, combin- 
ing and dividing numbers. 

Likewise he obtains in these Gifts the very 
important idea of Measure, which is an applica- 
tion of Number to Form, whereby the latter is 
measured or reduced to the terms of mind. 
Measuring is a kind of smelting of the things 



46 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

of the solid world, and pouring them into the 
ideal moulds of the spirit, by which they can 
ever afterwards be handled mentally. An old 
philosopher regarded all thinking as a measuring, 
and one definition of man has pronounced him 
to be supremely the Measure (Homo Mensura). 

Such are the three quantitative principles which 
are unfolded from the present series of Gifts, 
and determine its name and general character — 
Form, Number, Measure — which correspond to 
the sciences of Geometry, Arithmetic, Mensura- 
tion (applied number). Hence it is evident that 
the best way to designate these Gifts is to call 
them quantitative, which means not simply geo- 
metrical, or numerical, or measuring, but all 
three and something more. 

To the foregoing educative purposes of the 
Gifts is often added that of position or location, 
with the accompanying word which introduces 
the teaching of language. These two matters, 
indeed, belong here, and cannot well be left out. 
Then comes the external combination to produce 
new forms, which properly belongs to the Mor- 
phology of the Gifts, a subject which lies outside 
of the scope of the present book. 

In the total movement of the Play-gifts (in- 
cluding all the Gifts and Occupations) the quan- 
titative series belono^s to the second stao-e of the 
Psychosis, as it deals primarily with the spatial. 



FB OEBEV S PL A Y GIF TS. -QUA NTITA TIVE. 47 

the extended, the external element of nature. 
But chiefly, its first principle is origination, that 
is, separation, which is an unfolding of that 
which was before implicit, a making real of that 
which was before potential. This character we 
shall at once see in the Second Gift, the starting- 
point of the series, being that which distinguishes 
it from the First Gift, which is not directly origi- 
native, or separative, though it has six different 
objects. If these Avere derived in any way from 
one another, the First Gift would be internally 
orofinative. Still the First Gift has slumberino^ 
within itself, baby that it is, all the potentialities 
which are hereafter to become realities ; in this 
sense it has also a genetic power, though som- 
nolescent. 

The Second Gift may be well regarded as the 
most important of all the Play-gifts of Froebel, 
quantitative or qualitative; it, therefore, deserves 
the most thought and the fullest treatment. In it 
must be seen and felt the creative Idea at work, 
being a kind of demiurge or world-creator, pos- 
sessing the divinely active spark of genesis, out 
of which moves forth the cosmos. Nor can we 
ever forget the marvelous conception of an old 
Greek philosopher, Empedocles, who actually 
deified the Sphere, calling it the God Sphairos, 
who is the beginning of all things, who is the 
perfect and concordant union of all the elements 



48 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

in a kind of pre-evStablished divine harmony, 
into which, however, discord, separation, war, is 
finally to enter. Such a divinity, we may almost 
imagine, to be presiding over Froebel's little 
cosmos of Play -gifts for the little child, whom 
they take literally by the hand and lead step by 
step into the grand cosmos of which he is a mem- 
ber, and in which he is to play a part. 



I. 



THE SECOND GIFT (ORIGINATIA^) . 

The Second Gift, then, we call the Originative 
Gift, since this term suggests its genetic charac- 
ter. In it we may note a kind of triple genesis 
or three stages of the creative process. 

First, it starts with the Sphere which, as dis- 
tinct from the Ball, has within itself its own 
creative movement, as Center, Periphery, 
Eadius. 

Secondly, this Sphere generates out of itself 
the Cube and Cylinder, the whole constituting 
the three forms of the Second Gift. 

Thirdly, these three forms generate the other 
Gifts of the quantitative series (Third to Tenth 
inclusive). 

4 (49) 



50 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Thus we behold the Second Gift in three 
phases of creative energy — the creation of the 
Sphere, the creation of the Gift, the creation of 
the series of Gifts (quantitative). An inner 
generative power we see at first, and then an 
outer, producing other Gifts. Yet it is always 
to be emphasized that these genetic principles of 
the Second Gift are inherently connected. If it 
had no inner creative energy, it would have no 
outer ; its external production is but the mani- 
festation of its internal activity. Thus it is hke 
man, like the Ego, which has its own creative 
process (the Psychosis) whereb}^ it becomes the 
productive source of manifold works in the 
world. The inner genesis not only precedes but 
necessitates the outer genesis. 

In accordance with the educative movement 
already unfolded, the present series of Gifts 
should start with a Gift which contains implicitly 
the whole series, and from which all the other 
Gifts of the series should come forth by an 
inner , evolution. Then the movement, when 
completed, should return to its origin, and psy- 
chically justify the same by such return. 

So, we must observe that this Second Gift is 
also the potential Gift of its series ; as the First 
Gift, already described, is the potential Gift of 
the total sweep of all the Gifts and Occupations, 
so the Second Gift, being likewise a starting- 
point and a germ of beginning and becoming, is 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS —THE SECOND. 51 

the potential Gift of the entire quantitative 
series. 

The Second Gift is composed of three 
sliapes — Sphere, Cube, and Cylinder, made of 
wood. They are perforated in such a manner 
that they can be made to whirl and to perform 
various kinds of movement. The triplicity is 
the foremost outer fact here, which fact, how- 
ever, must be finally justified by an inner reason. 

1 . The Ball ( Si:)h ere ) . This has been already 
so fully treated in the preceding Gift, that very 
little need be added. It is essentially a repeti- 
tion, yet in a new relation. It is now taken as 
the source of the present series of Gifts, which 
are inherently quantitative, not qualitative. 
Hence the Ball is at present to be considered, as 
far as possible, without its properties. 

Still it has, and must have, properties, being a 
material object, and these properties are first to 
be looked at briefly, in contrast especially with 
the preceding Ball. The former is much softer 
than the latter ; one is, however, smoother, less 
elastic than the other or may be ; the First Gift 
is many-colored, the Second has only one color, 
which is or mav be retained throuo^hout the whole 
series. Then the hard Ball gives forth a much 
louder sound when pounded with on the table or 
thrown upon the floor, than the soft Ball — a fact 
strongly insisted on by some kindergardners. 
Still the child has been introduced to the sound- 



62 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

world by the soft Ball, which also has its little 
cry when punched or assailed. Finally a verbal 
distinction is sought to be maintained between 
the two by calling the one a Ball and the other a 
Sphere or Globe, in correspondence with German 
usage in the present case. 

Still, though these contrasts hold good, we 
are to see just by means of them that the 
property of the Ball is not now the main 
thing, is quite an indifferent thing, is, in 
fact, even that which we are henceforth to 
take away in thought. In other words the ab- 
straction is to be made from the qualitative, and 
the stress is to be placed upon the quantitative, 
the extended, the spatial. For this is what is 
most immediately present to the senses of the 
child, and is the first element of the external 
world which he is called upon to master. 

The Ball, having been brought over from the 
First Gift to the Second, is next to be seen as 
the point of departure for the latter. What is 
implicit within it, is to become explicit; what 
constitutes its inner essence is to be externalized 
and to be made visible. What are the implicit 
elements which the Ball must now make explicit 
and manifest to the senses? 

In the Ball (or the Sphere) there are three 
inner elements : — 

(1.) The central Point, from which the ro- 
tundity of the Sphere is determined. 



FROEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.-THE SECOND. 53 

(2.) The diametral Line, in the middle of 
which is the central Point fixed between two 
radii. 

(3.) As a solid, the Sphere must have the 
three dimensions — length, breadth, height — 
represented by three Planes passing through the 
Sphere at right angles in the three different 
directions. — The intersecting Plane. 

To these inner elements we may add in thought 
the external periphery, into which they are to be 
brought. 

Thus we have the Point, Line, and Plane, as 
internal in the Sphere, not visible, not explicit. 
Moreover, the Point is fixed in the Line, the 
Line is fixed in the Plane, and the Plane is fixed 
in the solid. Now all these are to come out and 
to manifest themselves in a shape which we are 
soon to see. 

Here we may introduce into this Gift a valu- 
able help, the so-called skeleton Sphere made 
of ^paper. Its object is to render visible these 
invisible elements of the Sphere, and thus to 
bring home to the mind through the senses what 
is really supersensuous. Three round discs of 
paper are taken, representing three planes, and 
incisions are to be made into them that they can 
be brought to intersect with one another at right 
angles round the center. Thus we see the inner 
elements — the Plane, the Lnie, the Point — of 
the Sphere in their relation. 



54 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

But the destiny of what is implicit is that it 
become explicit; the potential is to be made 
real; the internal invisible secret is to be re- 
vealed and brought to light; the undifferenced 
is to be differentiated. Such is the inner process 
of the spirit and the outer process of the world, 
which is not only a reflection but a creation of 
the spirit. From the Sphere we pass to the 
opjDOsite. 

2. The Cube, We remember that the Sphere 
has as its internal unseen determinant the point 
at the center. This Point is now separated from 
its position at the center, and is brought to the 
surface ; such is the fundamental separation which 
next takes place, wherein we see the second stage 
of the Psychosis. 

But what happens? That central Point, 
brought to the surface of the Sphere, must destroy 
its rotundity, since this is what is determined by 
that central Point with its radius. When the 
unseen center is brought into the seen periphery, 
then the periphery in its turn can be no longer 
seen, but becomes ideal, a possibility. Thus the 
seen and the unseen change places. 

The Cube is the Ball (or Sphere) turned in- 
side out. The Point, Line, Plane, implicit and 
invisible in the Sphere, are explicit and visible in 
the Cube with its eight corners, twelve edges, and 
six surfaces. The inner essence of the Sphere 
is externaUzed, realized, uttered (outered) in the 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 55 

Cube. We may look at this transition in a little 
more detail, in order to bring out its importance, 
since the genetic movement of the quantitative 
Gifts has its starting-point just here. 

(1.) The central Point comes first, Avhich we 
have just noticed in its inner, hidden, undevel- 
oped state, and have seen it thrown out into the 
periphery which it previously determined as outer. 

What brings about this separation? It is a 
necessity of thought as well as of thing, it is the 
inherent process of the Ego as well as of the 
Universe. What lies in the Ball (or Sphere) 
must come out; it has to express itscK, else it 
would not be Nature's; it is as natural for the 
Sphere to burst forth into the Cube as it is for the 
seed to otow. What is ideal is under an eternal 
strain to become real ; the potential, always big 
with the actual, must at last give bii'th to its 
child. 

(2.) The diametral Line will also be brought 
to the surface with the central Point, which 
brings with itself to visibility its invisible con- 
stituent. For the center of the Sphere is the cen- 
ter of two radii or of the diameter of the Sphere, 
also inner and unseen; this diameter is made 
external and visible along with the center, which 
cannot be without it. That is, the central Point 
cannot be separated from its diametral Line, 
which conditions it, and so both come to the 
periphery, when the inner is to be made outer. 



56 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Moreover, this diametral line is a straight line, 
the shortest way between its two ends ; it is a 
right line, and all that it determines is rectilineal. 
This is the opposite of the curved surface hitherto 
visible. Now when this right line comes into this 
spherical surface and determines it, the sphericity 
must fall away, and become straightened; the 
surface is rectilineal throughout, that is, a plane 
surface bounded by right lines. 

Still, one Point and one diametral Line, ex- 
ternalized in the periphery, cannot remain alone 
therein, without effect; they are genetic, and, in 
order to be at all, they must transform the entire 
periphery of the Sphere, which cannot exist half 
curved and half straight. The generative prin- 
ciple of the Sphere, namely, the Point with its 
Line, has come to the surface and generates the 
same anew, determining it and dividing it up 
into corners, edges, faces, with just as many of 
each as it is capable of. For the central Point 
with its radii determines the whole periphery, not 
a part of it ; so the whole periphery must yield 
to the new determinant. 

(3.) The three intersecting Planes of the 
Sphere, representing the three inherent dimen- 
sions of the solid, must also be externalized and 
brought out into the periphery. With these 
Planes passing into the surface, its rotundity must 
vanish and be divided up into a number of faces 
or sides of the Cube. 



FB OEBEU S PL A Y GIFTS. — THE SE C OND. 5 7 

In like manner we saw rotundity disappear 
when the Point was made explicit, and also when 
the Line came forth into the surface. Still more 
distinctly, when this third element, the Plane, is 
brought into the periphery, does the spherical 
drop down to the flat surface. 

The fact is, however, that all these elements, 
the Point, the Line, the Plane, belong together 
in the Sphere; the Plane passes through the 
diametral Line, and this diametral Line passes 
through the Point, which lies in its middle. All 
three elements must come out too^ether and form 
the faces, edges, and corners of the Cube. 

We shall next consider the number and the 
various relations of these elements when exter- 
nalized in the Cube. In the first place, each 
dimension in the form of an inner Plane, passing 
through and intersecting with the other two 
dimensions in the form of Planes, divides with- 
in itself and moves in an opposite direction 
toward and into the surface, in which it produces 
the six (three times two) faces. In the second 
place, each diametral Line, formed by the inter- 
section of two Planes in the middle of the 
Sphere, will be in each of those Planes, will 
divide within itself and move toward and into 
the surface, where will be formed, as there are 
three such intersecting diametral Lines, the 
twelve edges of the Cube (two times two times 
three). In the third place, these same dimen- 



58 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

sions in the form of intersecting Planes of the 
Sj)here form eight inner corners round the central 
Point, there being two bi-sections (halving and 
quartering) of each Plane (two times two times 
two). These inner corners externalized become 
the corners of the Cube. 

Let us illustrate. Take some round object 
(apple, orange, potato) which is easily divided; 
cut it in the three directions indicated, each cut 
may be conceived as a Plane passing through the 
object at right angles to the other two cuts or 
Planes in the center. You will notice at once 
the eight pieces with their corners around the 
central Point ; these separated and brought to 
the surface opposite are the eight separate cor- 
ners of the Cube. Secondly, observe the three 
diametral Lines formed by the cross-cuts of the 
Planes through the center; further note that 
each such Line is in two of the Planes ; finally 
separate each of these Lines as Line in each 
Plane and move it outward to the surface ; by 
such act of separation you generate the twelve 
edges. Thirdly, take the three Planes inter- 
secting inwardly, divide them as Planes and 
move them in each direction outward, and you 
have the six faces of the Cube. In this way we 
see the Point, Line, Plane in separation, which, 
however, must be united and in position that 
they all form the Cube. 

Each of these pieces with its corner can be 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 59 

transformed by the same general process into a 
small Cube, making eight in all, which brings to 
light the Third Gift. In each piece are corner, 
edge, and face, as yet not developed into their 
perfect fulfillment in form; still, they are all 
generative in thought, and will unfold into their 
complete reality in the Cube. 

This movement of separation in the three 
Planes is essentially the same, though in different 
directions. We may discriminate these direc- 
tions in the various Planes by the use of terms : 
up and down for the separation in the horizontal 
Plane, right and left for the same in the front 
perpendicular Plane, to and fro for the same in 
the cross-perpendicular Plane. These terms may 
also be used to distinguish the separative move- 
ments of the Line and Point, as they go out to 
the surface in opposite directions. 

Still another illustration may be employed in 
this connection — the skeleton Sphere already 
described, or, when its corners are attached, the 
skeleton Cube. This figure is the counterpart of 
the solid, since it brings out the ideal elements — 
Plane, Line, Point — and makes them material. 
The skeleton, usually hidden in the body, is here 
made visible, external, hence the name. We 
look through the solid, as it were, and behold its 
inner workings. We see the eight corners clus- 
tered round their central Point ; we see the three 
diametral Lines in their six Planes movino: out- 



60 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

ward and forming the twelve edges ; finally we 
see the three intersecting Planes dividing within 
and going forth into their external position as the 
six faces of the Cnbe. To be sure this genetic 
vision is ideal, but it always lies back of and 
creates the real. 

We may remark in passing, that it does not 
help along very much to call this inner external- 
izing principle a force, as the scientists and cer- 
tain philosophers do, and as Froebel sometimes 
(though not always) does. For we have to ask 
what is this ^force? We find that it is usually 
conceived as some outside energy, not to be 
thought of any further, or openly declared to be 
unknowable. So the difficulty is simply thrown 
back one step and dropped. Force itself must 
be put under thought, as well as the process of 
the Sphere which it seeks to explain. Force, in 
so far as it means anything, is ultimately a phase 
of the Ego, especially of the Will, without which 
force could not be nor be conceived to be. It is 
the Ego which has mthin itself this inner power 
of separation, externalization, manifestation, to 
which the material universe corresponds and of 
which it is primarily the creation. And so, in 
order to understand the present movement of the 
Sphere, we have to identify it with the move- 
ment of the Ego, to make it a part of ourselves; 
thus we psychologize it and come to know it truly, 
first integrating it Avith ourselves and then sep- 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 61 

arating and distinguishing it, as it is in itself. We 
may, therefore, refrain from injecting force as 
an exphmation of the present process, as that is 
an explanation which explains nothing, and 
which is itself in sore need of explanation. 

Accordingly we always come back to the Ego 
in its thinking, creative activity, as the primal 
source of things. We have illustrated the sub- 
ject previously both by a solid and by a skeleton 
figure ; still we have to return to the thought of 
this transition from Sphere to Cube, in order to 
be fully satisfied. For thought is the creative 
principle of the universe, and is what really 
creates the Cube from the Sphere. This thought 
is what we are to take up into ourselves, and we 
may re-iterate briefly its main steps : — 

(a.) The periphery of the Sphere is deter- 
mined by the central Point with its radius. 

(6.) This Point is determined as central by 
being in the middle of two radii which constitute 
the diametral Line. 

(c.) This Point with its diametral Line is 
brought to the surface, whose rotundity falls 
away. 

(d.) The whole rotundity must vanish, as the 
whole periphery was determined by this Point 
and Line. 

(e.) The three dimensions as Planes are 
brought to the surface, in which they become 
sides. 



62 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

(/.) So we find the Point, Line, and Plane of 
the Sphere separated and externalized in the 
Cube in eight corners, twelve edges, and six sides. 

Another noticeable fact is the duality of these 
three elements in the Cube. That is, the Point, 
Line, and Plane, are not lost even in the Cube, 
they are both inner and outer ; the Cube has still 
the central Point, the diametral Line, the inter- 
secting Planes. But these are at present mere 
shadows, though they once determined the 
Sphere; they are now cast out of power, reduced 
to a kind of ghosts which love to haunt the scene 
of their former glory. So the Cube has still the 
spectral counterparts of the actual Plane, Line, 
Point, holding both elements together in a sort 
of union which is hke that, of soul and body. 
Still even these ghostly forms will again see the 
light of day in the Third Gift, which makes a 
new division of the Cube through Plane, Line, 
and Point, transforming these hidden elements 
once more into visible corners, edges, sides of 
smaller Cubes. So there is a re-incarnation ; but 
this second body in each case projects a second 
shadow of itself, and the duality above men- 
tioned clings to the reproduced forms. All this 
must be regarded as characteristic of the separa- 
tion which lies in the origin and nature of the 
Cube. 

Accordingly, this transition from the Point 
through the Sphere to the Cube must ultimately 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 63 

be grasped as thought, not as image. For the 
image is the copy of the visible, while this tran- 
sition is just the movement from the invisible to 
the visible. At any rate the Point not having 
length, breadth, or thickness, cannot be out- 
wardly seen, but must be inwardly conceived, 
concernino^ which fact somethino^ will be said 
hereafter when we come to the explicit Point at 
the end of the Gifts. The distinction between 
thought and image, or between the creative and 
representative activities, makes itself felt in the 
mentioned transition, but we need not develop it 
now. 

An intermediate f or ni between the Cube and 
Ball was introduced'"5yF'roebel, and has emphat- 
ically assert^d^its place to the present tune. This 
form ^v^^e to consider next. 

3. The Cylinder. If the edge of the Cube be 
made to revolve, that is, to return into itself, a 
round surface will be generated, but as hnear, 
and every edge of the Cube will disappear. The 
two corners will describe two circular edges, 
which will bound the two flat sides and the round 
surface just mentioned. The result will be the 
Cylinder — a linear Sphere or a spherical Line. 
The explicit diametral Line (not the implicit) 
generates its round solid which will be the Cylin- 
der, not the Sphere. It is the edge of the Cube 
seeking, as it were, to return to the Sphere, its 
origin, rotating back toward the same and carry- 



64 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

ins: the Cube alonoj. Yet this Line, remainins^ 
explicit, cannot reach the Sphere, which requires 
that it be implicit. 

The Cylinder, therefore, will roll easily in one 
direction, that is, on a line, wherein it betrays its 
origin. The Sphere, however, rolls in all direc- 
tions, being the possibility of all lines. When it 
is projected into a line, and becomes a Cylinder, 
it loses this trait and rolls one way only. The 
other ways or directions are cut off by the two 
flat surfaces of the Cylinder which it has inher- 
ited from the Cube. Hence it stands firm on its 
two sides like a Cube, and rolls on its other side 
like a Ball. Thus it unites traits from both 
ancestors. Still the Cylinder must be seen com- 
ino^ from the Cube since it has Line and Surfaces 
explicit, yet moving toward and coalescing with 
the Spliere, returning out of separation to its 
mother, or perchance, to its grandmother. 

The Cylinder, therefore, we should place in 
due order as the third shape of the Second Gift, 
coming through the Cube from the Sphere origi- 
nally, to which it is returning. 

Thus we bring before ourselves the process of 
this Gift moving through its three shapes accord - 
ino; to the inner order of the Es^o, thousfh the 
outer order (that of the senses) is possible and 
may sometimes be preferable with the child. 
(See a further discussion of this matter in the 
Observations on the present Gift.) 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— TS:^ SECOND. 65 

Qn the si^e pf it>s spherical descent, we may 
regard the Cylinder as the Sphere prolonged into 
its diametral Line, giviug to the same the length 
of the diameter, yet without making the central 
Point explicit as a corner. The Cylinder, as 
already said, has two round edges, showing the 
two limits of the diametral Line, and marking 
the Cjdinder sharply by this Line. 

In what order shall we place the three shapes 
of this Gift? The Cylinder we have already 
grasped as the return of the Cube to the Sphere 
ill the total psychical process of the Second Gift. 
The diametral Line, explicit in the Cube as edge, 
is conceived as going back to its source, the Sphere, 
and uniting with that in the creation of a new 
shape, which is the Cjdinder. For this Line now 
transmutes the Sphere into itself as a straight 
line, so that the whole Sphere elongates itself or 
straightens itself out into a diametral Line, which 
newly generated body is round as the Sphere, 
yet long and straight as the diameter. So the 
Cylinder may be regarded as the explicit diamet- 
ral Line of the Cube returning to its source, the 
Sphere, absorbing the same, and thus becoming 
one with it. Note that the rotundity falls away 
at the ends of the Line, being determined thereto 
by the diameter. 

Thus the Second Gift contains within itself 
the psychical movement of the Ego, which fact 
is its final justification. Li the process of the 

5 



66 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Ball, Cube, and Cylinder the child's mind is un- 
folding out of its implicit, undeveloped condition, 
is being borne forth into consciousness out of the 
infantile sleep of the spirit. From potentiality 
the child is moving into reality through this Gift, 
since it is identifying itself with the real world. 
Such is the basic principle of what is often called 
the symbolism of the Gifts : the outer process of 
material shapes corresponds to the inner process 
of the child's Ego, which he unfolds through an 
ordered play with these shapes. Play it must be, 
spontaneous, yet not chaotic or capricious play, 
but ordered. The child must learn to combine 
liberty and law in his play from the beginning. 

It is manifest, however, that other shapes be- 
side the Cylinder are generated in this return 
of the Cube to the Sphere. Though they have 
hardly yet been adopted into the kindergarten 
family, they are often heard knocking at the door 
for admission. Froebel himself seems not to 
have fully made up his mind what to do with 
them. The two chief ones we may look at for 
the sake of comparison and of completeness. 

4. Pyramid and Cone. The most direct prod- 
uct of the Cube, the first form that it unfolds in 
its return to its source, is the Pyramid with the 
square base. We must conceive that in the 
Pyramid, the Cube, though starting to divide 
within, still preserves the half of itself, but has 
to let the other half go and allow it to be pro- 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 67 

jected into a Point, which is the product and 
extremity of the inner diametral Line. In such 
a projection the Pyramid succeeds in keeping its 
basic lower face whole, but it loses all of its upper 
face, and a considerable portion of each of the 
four side faces, which come together in the form 
of triangles at the apex, whereby the whole figure 
is made to point significantly upward. 

The Pyramid shows a kind of dumb, stonvstruof- 
gle within itself; it is the flat-sided, indifferent 
Cube broken up and stirred within to aspiration 
which longs to reach out beyond itself, to the 
unseen, to the very Heavens above, yet keeping- 
its bodily form as far as possible, and still stand- 
ing squarely on the Earth, in spite of that 
prophetic outreach upward. The people of the 
Nile valley at one period of their history must 
have had this lons^ino- for the invisible with such a 
mighty intensity that they built it into the 
Pyramids of Egypt, the most coUossal monu- 
ments of the ancient world. 

The Cone is a further step in the return to the 
Sphere, though it has, like the Pyramid, the Point 
explicit in an apex. But it has lost the four 
basic Points or corners, and the four straight 
lines as edges are transformed into one circular 
edge, and therewith the four triangular surfaces 
have vanished into one round surface. It is 
manifest that rotundity is getting the upper hand 
over the cubical elements. The Cone is the 



@i THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Pyramid made round ; or it is the Sphere pulling 
itself out to a Point, There is but one Point 
explicit in the Cone, and that is determined by 
the inner diametral Line, as in the Pyramid. Ac^ 
cordingly, we may derive the Cone from either 
direction — from the Cube or from the Sphere. 
We may conceive of the Cone as the central 
Point of the Sphere projected into externality by 
the diametral Line and carrying the Sphere along 
to the apex, so that rotundity gets pointed in the 
Cone. 

The Cylinder we have already considered, but 
in its present aspect we may regard it as the third 
step in the return from the Cube to the Sphere. 
In it the diametral Line has become explicit with- 
out any Point, so that the Cylinder may be con- 
ceived as a Sphere projected into the diametral 
Line, having length but no corner or apex or 
straight edge. Make this Line purely internal 
or diametral, and the return to the Sphere is 
completed. The Cylinder is a Sphere which is a 
Line, or a Line which is a Sphere; or, as already 
said, a spherical Line or a linear Sphere. 

We have now unfolded the Second Gift in the 
three stages of its psychical process — the imme- 
diate or potential (the Sphere), the separative 
or explicit (the Cube), and the returning and 
uniting (Cylinder). But we have found that 
this last or returning stage manifests within itself 



FBOEBEUS PLAY mFTS.--THE SECOND. 69 

three steps, which are shown realized in the 
Pyramid, Cone, Cylinder. 

Putting all these shapes together, we have the 
f oliowiilg succession briefly stated : — 

1. The Ball — Point, Line, and Plane implicit. 

2. The Cubie — Point, Line, and Plane explicit. 

3. The Pyramid — the Cube projecting itself 
to a Point. 

4. Tlie Cone — the Sphere projecting itself to 
a Point. 

5 . The Cylinder — the Sphere projecting itself 
into a Line. 

The other distinctions between these shflpes, 
as well as their movement, have been sufficiently 
indicated already in the preceding ejipOsition. 

Other Accessories. Doubtless the Sphere, Cube, 
and Cylinder will remain the heart of the Sec- 
ond Gift, but for the purpose of explaining and 
unfolding it more fully , certain additions will be 
made from time to time. Beside the Pyramid 
and Cone already considered, which may be in- 
troduced to the older children, we mention other 
accessories, very helpful indeed. If not an organic 
part of the Gift* 

First of all We would place the skeleton Sphere 
and Cube before described. Both of these fornls 
are most important aids to the Second Gift, find 
are also useful in the First and Third. By means 
of these forms the child sees eilibodied division 



70 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

in the paper planes, or embodied production, 
since here the production is bj division. Also it 
suggests one kind of physical generation, that by 
fissiparism, seen in many protozoans. Then the 
whole shape suggests the cell or the cluster of 
cells as the primary type of life which is also a 
physical reproduction. The histologist tells us 
that the unit of human organism is the cell, which 
likewise reproduces itself by division, separating 
itself into two, four, and even eight parts, each 
of which becomes a cell. If this be so, the skele- 
ton Cube with its eio-ht cells is a marvelous imao^e 
of the self -reproduction which is always taking 
place in the living human body. For the Cube 
is seen dividing itself by means of the planes, 
which are walls of the cells, and these again when 
divided are small Cubes or small cells, if you 
please. Bee-cells, though hexagonal and not 
usually clustered about a center, have a similar 
suo:o-estion. The round hornet's nest with its 
multitudinous cells can also be compared. At 
any rate these skeleton figures as a kind of em- 
bodied origination correspond deeply with the 
orio^inative character of the Second Gift and are 
very suggestive both to the kindergardner and 
the child. 

In the second place we should not fail to con- 
sider the division by concentric layers or shells. 
The Sphere ought to be seen in three such layers , 



FBOEBEVS FLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 71 

moving inward to the Point or outward from the 
Point. Likewise the Cube and Cylinder are to 
be similarly divided. As illustrating the Point 
projecting itself in all directions into the Peri- 
phery, the concentric Spheres are very signifi- 
cant and touch the child with a peculiar power, 
showing the activity of his own central Ego to 
itself. For the sake of derivation, particularly 
in the case of the curvilinear Gifts, we must have 
the concentric Cylinder whose sections give the 
three different arches, as well as the rings of 
Abstract Magnitude, which are likewise halved 
and quartered, as well as of different sizes. So 
too the round tablets. And we must add that 
Froebel, among his mature thoughts on the 
Kindergarden, unfolds this idea of concentrism 
in the forms of the Second Gift — whereof 
something will be said later. 

Our subject has now brought us to a new kind 
of division, the outer or cross division of the 
inner or concentric division, separating the round 
forms of the latter into halves and quarters. 

Thus in this Second Gift we see three kinds 
of separation or origination. First is the outer 
one, by external division, by fission or fissipa- 
rism; second in the inner one, that of concen- 
trism; third is a unity of the two, in which the 
concentric forms are divided by straight lines. 

Thus the Second Gift vindicates again its title 



72 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

of originative; also it asserts anew its place as 
the second or separatiye stage of the Psychosis 
in the total movement of these Play-gifts of 
Froebel. From it are derived primarily the quan- 
titative Gifts whose unfolding is to follow in due 
order hereafter. 

Once more it must be affirmed that the Second 
Gift is, all in all, the most important of the whole 
series. Particularly should the kindergardner 
herself be imbued with its spirit; she must 
assimilate its genetic nature, making the same 
her own, both through play and thought. One 
may well say that the Second Gift is a spiritual 
Gift, it has an inner life of its OAvn, which must 
be made outer, not so much in its own limited 
range as in the entire sweep of the Gifts and 
Occupations, whose creative principle it is in a 
supreme sense. Veritably it is the soul, the rest 
of them make up the body, which has little 
meaning without the creative spark. 

By way of confirming, expanding, and illus- 
trating what has been said upon this Gift, we 
shall append some observations, into which the 
student will dip with the hope possibly of catch- 
ing a few stray stimulating thoughts. 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 73 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE SECOND GIFT. 

1 . It will be noticed by the student that the 
treatment of the preceding geometric forms is 
different from that of the ordinary geometry. 
The attempt here is to generate them, one out of 
the other, and all of them out of a common 
source. This method is based upon the convic- 
tion, that they have in themselves a generative 
principle which produces them, and it is just this 
principle that thought must at last seize and 
express, inasmuch as thought is the creative 
energy in all things. 

We must, therefore, reach into the creative 
movement, which is the soul of even the geo- 
metric form, the latter being a creation of an 
Ego, and bearing the imprint thereof, along with 
the whole universe. It is that genetic act which 
we must identify and know, producing the divine 
process of creation over again in our thought. 
** God geometrizes," said the old philosopher, 
and we must geometrize after Him in His way in 
order to know Him, or even to know geometry. 

2. The manner of presenting the Second Gift 
has been discussed a good deal by kindergaidners. 
We have above unfolded the succession as Ball, 



74 TEE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Cube, and Cylinder; but ought it not to be Ball, 
Cylinder, and Cube, inasmuch as the Cylinder 
stands next to the Ball in shape? The question 
calls up the whole subject of Methods, or the 
order of presentation, upon which we remark the 
following: — 

(a.) There is, first of all, the sense-order, in 
which the appearance of the sensuous impression 
controls the method. We proceed in an experi- 
mental or even chronological way. Given the 
object to start with, we take as next in order 
what is most similar in form or nearest in time or 
place; then we pass to the object which has a 
little greater difference from the first, and so on 
till we reach the completely opposite object. 
Adopting such an order in the preceding exposi- 
tion, we would have the series Ball, Cylinder, 
Cone, Pyramid, Cube. First is the least possible 
difference and the greatest possible similarity, 
then a little more of the one and a little less of 
the other ; so we go on increasing the amount of 
difference till we land in the realm of absolute 
opposition. 

Such is the one order, the sense-order, the near- 
est to the antecedent in form, time, place, hence 
the easiest for the senses, or at least generally 
so, for there would seem to be exceptions to the 
rule. Now we shall glance at the other kind of 
order. 

(h.) This is the thought-order, which, given 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 75 

the object to start with, leaps at once to its op- 
posite. For when you take up difference into 
thought, it is universal; when yoM think dif- 
ference, you think all difference, not some little 
fragment of it scattered about somewhere. But 
the senses can receive only some small bit of 
difference at a time ; in other words the senses 
are particular, while thought is universal. We 
may call this the logical order, or even the psy- 
chological order, though the latter is not a good 
expression, as psychology includes or ought to 
include both, ways, dealing with the senses as well 
as with thought. 

The logical order, therefore, introducing dif- 
ference into the Ball, demands that the object 
next in succession be completely different, have 
otherness in it at every point. Hence this order 
proceeds from the Ball to the Cube, and then 
gives the return, revealing the Psychosis in the 
-Second Gift. 

(c.) Which order is the kindergardner to use 
with the child? She is not called upon to ex- 
clude absolutely either, she may use both. 
There is no doubt that the child is a sensuous 
being at the start, yet has in him the potentiality 
of a spiritual being ; he is to rise from the first 
to the second. Moreover, a certain class of 
minds remain sensuous, experimental, inductive 
to the last, and nothing else ; yet even the most 
ideal man has or ought to have a strain of this 



76 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

element in him for his own private use in an 
emergency. 

Most children have doubtless the need of a 
s^fige-order at the beginning, though some chil^ 
dren seem to take at once to the thought-order; 
Let the kindergardner know both ways, and 
study the needs of her flock; let her be willing 
to employ one or the other, without prejudice or 
foregone conclusion. Yet so much may be vig- 
orously affirmed: the movement is toward the 
thought-order as the highest, though the sense- 
order be used as an educative means. In the 
preceding exposition we have unfolded the 
thought-order for the kindergardner, which she 
must understand that she may know the goal of 
her labors. 

We may compare the two ways by an illustra- 
tion* The sun still rises for the child as for the 
primitive man, he is controlled by what appears 
to his senses immediately in that case, he cannot 
understand any other way. That is, the child 
is geocentric in his view of the external world, 
the earth where he stands is for him the center 
of the universe. Yet in due time he must be- 
come heliocentric, he must make the sun the 
center, round which the earth moves. Thus he 
must get beyond the sensuous appearance, and 
reconstruct it according to his own inner vision, 
which contradicts so glaringly the outer ; from 
the sense-order of the solar system he must rise 



FEOEBEL^^ BLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 77 

to the thoviglit-order. But at the st^rt he has to 
chvell m the first. 

Indeed it is a grajid act of self-estrangement 
to take the sun as the center instead of the earth. 
It hurls the individual out of his immediate sense- 
world of appearance and forces him to create it 
from the standpoint of thought. Incalculable 
has been the value of the training of the Coper- 
nican theor3^ It compels a person to change his 
view of the imiverse internally as well as extern 
nally, to pass from an outer geocentric vision to 
an inner heliocentric vision of the grand oosmical 
order. 

It may be said that up to the time of Coperni- 
cus and his followers, the race had been 
geocentric, though some of its great spirits had 
had a presentiment of the truth. Even the 
church was geocentric, it fought for and perse- 
cuted for that principle against heliocentrism. 
The lower orders of mankind are stiU geocen- 
tric, to their minds the sun ^' do move." 

The child has to follow the movement of its 
race in this as in so many other respects. The 
kindergardner should understand the httle soul 
both in its present reality and in its future possi- 
bility; she should give due vahdity to both 
procedures, that of the senses and that of 
thought. If she drops back into the purely sen- 
suous method, she may endanger the child's 
whole spiritual destim , Then she can err on the 



78 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

other side and pass out of the horizon of the 
child, who thus becomes listless and hopeless. 

We may divide minds into geocentric and helio- 
centric. In spite of all culture, some keep to 
the last their terrestrial center, round which all 
things revolve, even the celestial luminary. 

3. The Ball is found everywhere in Nature, 
while the Cube is rare in Nature. But the mo- 
ment man begins to transform Nature for his 
own use, the cubical or at least the cuboidal form 
begins to show itself. Especially when he starts 
to building his place of abode or defense, the 
round, independent shape has to disappear, while 
the squared, close-fitting block of stone is laid as 
the foundation of his structure, and becomes the 
constituent of his inclosing wall. 

Accordingly, the transition from the Ball to the 
Cube is almost the transition from the nature- 
made to the man-made, it suggests the rise from 
the physical to the spiritual. The human being 
has to make-over the crude, material object, and 
put upon it his impress, and employ it for his 
purpose. In going from the Ball to the Cube, 
the child is starting on his journey from senses 
to spirit, from what is given by the external 
world he is passing to the creative principle of 
mind and its forms. 

The objection, therefore, which is often heard 
from teachers unduly devoted to Natural Science, 
that the Cube is not common in Nature, is really 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 79 

an argument for its educational value when 
rightly understood. The challenging cry has 
been heard with a tone of triumph : ' ' Run out 
into the woods and pick up a Cube if yow can," 
as if that settled the matter. " Only in the 
house, in the city, in the abodes of civilized life 
do you find the cubical form in abundance, only 
among the artificial degenerate works of man, 
not among the pure and holy works of God." 
Of course this is again the shout of Rousseau, 
'« Back to Nature," a principle long since utilized 
and transcended, though its present advocates 
proclaim themselves the most advanced educa- 
tional reformers. 

But we strongly afiirm that if the child is 
turned loose in Nature and allowed to pick up 
any object and play with that, he is not getting 
much education — some information doubtless 
but very little education. If he passes from the 
Ball to a stick, or leaf, or lump of mud, he is 
simply going from one physical object to another, 
as caprice strikes him ; it is the movement from 
like to like, aiid that too, external. But when the 
child passes from the Ball to the Cube, the 
movement is from the nature-form toward a 
thought-form, and the process is truly educative; 
he is going out of a mere phj^sical life determined 
by what he sees into the life of civiHzation whose 
grand function is to transform the natural world. 

To be sure, this step is small, is but the begin- 



80 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

ning, and has to he so, the child bemg what he 
is, namely the beginner. Still the Cube is the 
starting-point for these geometric Gifts, in fact 
their originative form, their germ; as t\\Qj 
unfold, the child unfolds with them, they are 
the outer vehicle for his inner development. 
In this sense we may call these Gifts symbolic, 
they are the external image of his spirit in its 
present stage, they move as it moves; they pick 
it up, unite with it, unfold it, and at last reflect 
it back into itself, so that it becomes self-con- 
scious, as is its destiny. 

This symbolism we may carry out a little fur- 
ther in our thought. The child is primarily a 
Ball, implicit, potential, a rounded bud, seed, 
germ. But the child is to be a Cube, with all 
its poiuts and directions made explicit, brought 
out, educated ; every innate power is to be un- 
folded in the right way and in the way of right. 
Finally from this universal training and this train- 
ing in the universal, he is to pass to his special 
bent, to his vocation ; thus he is like the Cylin- 
der, Cone, or Pyramid, having one point exphcit 
or one line ; still he is to keep and forward his 
universal culture along with his particular call- 
ing. So he becomes in life a kind of union 
between the Cube and the Ball. 

4. The Second Gift has its difficulties for the 
kinder Of ardners, whose resources are often taxed 
to make it interesting to the children. It is cer- 



FROEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 81 

tainly not rich in forms, having only three, and 
one of these quite intractable for building or com- 
bination. Leaving out the Ball-plays, which 
chiefly belong to the First Gift, we have to 
acknowledge the dearth of the materials for 
direct play. The difficulty is, therefore, inherent 
in the Gift. 

Still the skiUful kindergardner can employ va- 
rious devices to help herself and her children 
into the golden field of interest. Some of these 
we shall jot down. 

(a.) She can introduce the story and set 
a-going the child's imagination through her own. 
The Cube can be a little person with a history ; 
it can be transformed into a variety of objects to 
which it bears some resemblance. Herein an 
excess is possible ; the child can be trained to a 
habit of wild fantastic dreaming or brooding, 
which may come to distort or neglect the fact. 

(6.) Song can be resorted to, for it has a 
power in its own right, and will help out in a 
good way. Still singing is not to be overdone, 
it cannot take the place of the total educative 
process. 

(c.) There are Cube games, which may give 
you much assistance in a right manner. The 
most common of these is the hiding of the faces 
of the Cube, by means of a handkerchief or piece 
of paper, and then showing them successively in 
various combinations. Thus counting, guessing, 

6 



82 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

calculation, etc., are introduced in a playful 
way. 

(cZ.) But perhaps the most successful of these 
devices for assisting the Second Gift is what is 
usually called the whirling game. The three 
forms are provided with staples in which a string 
may be inserted for the purpose of making the 
object rotate rapidly. The Cube when whirled 
in this manner reverts to round shapes, to a 
Cylinder, a double Cone, and a wheel. The 
Cylinder revolved with a certain velocity has the 
appearance of a Ball, in fact a double Ball. The 
manuals describe a considerable variety of these 
shapes of motion, which show a tendency to the 
round through rotation. That is, the round move- 
ment of a derived shape sends it back to or toward 
its original shape. But these whirling shapes are 
shadows, sometimes two or three shadows within 
one another, as if showing an entire line of 
ghostly ancestors of the actual body. One may 
consider the whole process a kind of idealizing 
the real, or making the real form show its ideal 
relations. 

5 . The movement of the Sphere into the Cube 
and other rectilineal shapes, suggests crystalliza- 
tion, in which Nature shoots into straight lines. 
Froebel, as is well known, was a crystallographer 
in his earlier career; we see the effect of his 
studies on this subject in his Education of Man, 
as well as in these quantitative Gifts. He has 



FitOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS —THE SECOND. 83 

elaborated the rectilineal element in four Gifts 
with a loving fullness, while the curvilineal ele- 
ment is not represented at all in the Gifts of 
Concrete Magnitude, as they were left by him. 

Moreover Froebel was an architect, or at least 
a student of architecture, and this influence may 
be supposed to have made itself felt in his Build- 
ing Gifts. Man constructs primarily by means 
of rectilineal forms, making them of brick, wood, 
stone. He cuts the native rock into rectangular 
shapes mostly; the early masonry, like the 
Cyclopean, shows it everywhere. When he 
builds of earth, sun-baked or fire-baked, it is the 
brick. The temple Parthenon has blocks square 
and oblong in its inclosed cella, though some 
modern walls have broken up this regular line 
and have inserted stones of irregular outline — 
another move for freedom. In the backwoods 
the frontiersman gets rid of the round form of the 
log which is built into his humble cabin, he hews 
it to a rio^ht line and thus takes oH its savas^e 
look. He, too, in the heart of the primeval forest, 
makes a start out of rude nature toward civiliza- 
tion. 

6. Objection has been made in some quarters 
against the Cylinder of the Second Gift on the 
ground that it is not beautiful, that it ought to 
be at least twice as long in order to show the 
form and proportion that are pleasing to the 
cultivated eye. 



84 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

The objection cannot hold for a number of 
reasons. First of all, the Second Gift is genetic 
and the Cylinder is derived from and measured 
by the diametral Line of the Sphere. To 
lengthen the Cylinder would be to break this 
genetic thread, which is to connect finally all 
nature, and which is the truly educative principle 
of the Gifts. To sacrifice this educative princi- 
ple to supposed esthetic considerations cannot be 
thought of for a moment. It would be the 
surrender of the soul to the body. 

But, in the second place, the deeper view of 
what is beautiful would not disturb the Cylinder 
in its present place. We should feel the inner 
harmony between it and the Ball, the harmony 
of genesis itself; we should hear in spirit its 
truly musical movement out of and into other 
forms of this Gift, a kind of symphony of trans- 
formation. If we increase the length of the 
Cylinder, we introduce a horrible discord into this 
song of the Sphere, Cube, and Cylinder attuned 
to the primordial key-note of all creation. For 
the sake of mere outer beauty at the very best, 
we destroy that inner beauty which springs 
from the deeper correspondences between nature 
and the soul of man. We hold, therefore, that 
a true conception of the beautiful will justify the 
Cylinder in its present shape and relation. 

The Gifts of Froebel, however, will not neglect 
the forms of beauty even in their external mani- 



FBOEBEVS PLAT GIFT8.—THE SECOND. 85 

festion. They will have their place in the order, 
which belongs not here, but to that part of the 
subject which we have called the Morphology of 
the Gifts. 

It may be added in this connection that some 
buildings, essentially cyhndrical in shape, with a 
height not greater or even less than the diameter, 
are counted among the most famous structures of 
the world. The Eoman Colosseum, somewhat 
oval, has an altitude less than one-third of either 
diameter. Yet it would hardly be considered 
inartistic for this reason. The small round Tem- 
ple of Vesta at Tivoli is distinguished for its 
beauty; nobody probably ever thought that it 
was out of proportion, yet its height differs little 
from its diameter. The Pantheon at Rome is a 
low cylinder surmounted by a dome. Surely in 
architecture a cylindrical shape of a height equal 
to its diameter cannot be put under the ban of 
ugliness. 

7. It is a significant fact that various nations 
have applied these geometric forms — Cylinder, 
Cone, Pyramid — in their simphcity to the erec- 
tion of tombs, the houses of the dead, in which lies 
more or less darkly a symbol or intimation of the 
Beyond, or of the Eternal. 

The cylindrical tomb finds its most famous 
examples at Eome, some of which were built in her 
most civilized epoch. Outside the walls can still 
be seen the large drum-like monument of CeciHa 



86 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Metella, eighty feet through. Inside the walls 
not far from the Vatican stands the lofty mauso- 
leum of Hadrian, now known as the Castle of St. 
Angelo, with a massive Cylinder over two hun- 
dred feet in diameter, above which rose a roof 
somewhat like a tent or cone. The substructure 
was square, so that it had its resemblence to 
Froebel's Cube, Cylinder, and Ball. 

Conical tombs are ruder and belong to an 
earlier epoch, often being hardly more than simple 
tumuli of earth . Still they are frequently built of 
stone, wholly and in part, like the so-called treas- 
uries (now considered to be tombs) in Greece, 
of which the best known are those at Mycenae 
and Orchomenus. Conical tombs are found in 
great numbers throughout Asia Minor, and with 
them legend has often coupled the name of some 
Trojan hero, or of some personage famed in 
story; for instance the tomb of Tantalus, cone- 
shaped, is still pointed out on the Lydian coast not 
far from Smyrna. Likewise Etruscan tombs are 
often conical. 

But the greatest tomb which man has built is 
the pyramidal, and is seen in the Egyptian PjTa- 
mids. Why should the living construct such a 
colossal abode for their lifeless shapes? The 
flat-footed Cube, base of the Pyramid, stands firm 
on the earth, yet mightily projects itself upward 
to a point, aspiring for the Unseen, striving from 
below to the Beyond in a Titanic struggle. 



FB0EBEV8 PLAY GIFT8.-THE SECOND, 87 

All these forms — Cylinder, Cone, Pyramid — 
the reader will note, are those produced by the 
Cube returning to the Sphere with its inyisible 
Point. They all hint, therefore, a going back to 
their source, to their primal origin ; they suggest a 
moyement from the terrestrial to the celestial, or 
from the material to the spiritual. Also a return 
it is ; may we not call such a monument an inti- 
mation of the return of the soul to its Creator? 
Man cannot help constructing a symbol of him- 
self eyen in his tomb, which says by its very 
shape: The departed haye indeed left us, but 
haye returned whence they came. 

Froebel's monument at Schweina is made of 
the Cube below, the Cylinder between, and the 
Sphere at the top ; in it Ave may read a hint of 
his return upwards, after the separation of his 
yisible portion from the inyisible. 

8. It may haye been noticed by the student that 
the aboye development of the Second Gift takes 
for granted that there are three dimensions of 
the solid and only three. It is a yery pertinent 
question: Why just three, no more and no less? 
The answer belongs to Philosophy, or, as we 
think, to Psychology, but cannot be fully giyen 
here. Still the earnest inquirer will reflect that 
the solid, both as Space and Matter, shows this 
agreement with the triple division of the Psychosis. 
It would seem that the material world is condi- 
tioned by triplicity as strongly as the Ego itself. 



88 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

or even more strongly, being tied up in the 
adamantine chain of three dimensions and no 
fourth. 

Space and Matter are the creation of an Ego 
and show its movement, even if completely exter- 
nalized, so that each dimension, though absolutely 
united with and determined by the other two, are 
yet wholly outside of the other two. The measur- 
ing principle (dimension) of the solid universe is 
threefold, bearing the outer impress of the Ego 
which made it, the Divine. Therefore, the Ego, 
the human, can account for it, can know it, using 
itseK as measurer with its own threefold process, 
which shows itself in the outer material world as 
the three dimensions. 

9. The method employed in the preceding ex- 
position of the Second Gift is not the ' ' connec- 
tion of the opposites," not " the mediation of 
contrasts." On the contrary, the process of the 
Ego is introduced to explain the unfolding of the 
child's mind through this Grift. The movement 
of the Ball, Cube, Cylinder, must be seen as an 
outer manifestation of the child's own soul (or 
Ego) in its development. Thus the Second Gift 
is profoundly educative, having in it the educative 
process in outward realit}^ by means of which 
the infantile mind is made to put forth a fresh 
flower, or is led out (educated) into a new stage 
of itself. 

This process, therefore, does not start with the 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 89 

conception of the Ball and Cube as two opposites, 
which are simply united in the Cylinder. On the 
contrary it starts with the Ball, out of which is 
evolved the Cube, which unfolds into the other 
forms (Pyramid, Cone, and Cylinder). This is 
not the * ' law of opposites ; " in strictness it is 
not a law at all, which seems some iron necessity 
imposed upon the mind from the outside by an 
unknown power. It is the free movement of the 
Ego itself in its own self -active nature, which 
herein is its own law and its own law-maker. 

We hold that Froebel's practice conforms to 
the process above given, though his explanation 
usually does not. Still he sometimes drops the 
law of opposites and seizes the pure psychical 
movement. On the whole, however, the student 
will have to confess that his practical work is far 
greater and deeper than his explanation of it. 

10. In the preceding exposition it has been 
declared that the central Point of the Sphere 
becomes explicit in the corner of the Cube. This 
is true, still we say here in advance that the 
implicit central Point just mentioned \vill become 
completely explicit when it is free of the Cube 
and is taken by itself, as it is in Abstract Mag- 
nitude. The last of the Gifts (quantitative) is 
the Point, separate from all matter and extension, 
fully explicit and free. 

Thus we observe that the sweep of the Gifts 
lies between the two Points, the beginning and 



90 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

the end, the completely implicit and the com- 
pletely explicit Points, the latter being repre- 
sented by the seed or pebble. These two Points, 
the beginning: and end of the Gifts, are connected 
by an inner genesis, which will be better under- 
stood at its conclusion, when this thought is to 
be specially emphasized. 

11. The Second Gift, with Cube below. Cylin- 
der in the middle, and Ball on top, has a 
surprising resemblance to the human form, a 
rough-hewn outline of man himself, not yet un- 
folded into his full noble shape, but distinctly 
going thitherward. Not yet evolved, but evolving ; 
a somewhat awkward, unfree figure of humanity 
developing into the image of its very self ; it is 
a rude statue of the incipient Ego taking on its 
visible counterpart, the body. It is a kind of 
hieroglyphic of the child-soul who has to read it, 
and thereby come to a knowledge of himself. 

Make him stand «rect, that primeval Man, 
with base firmly planted on the earth, with 
cylindrical body upright, and capped with the 
sphere, that round head of his, which is the seat 
of his thought, of his creative power, generating 
anew all things. Certainly a rude figure of a 
human being, yet statuesque, recalling the child 
statuary making himself out of mud and thus 
looking at himself, or the primitive sculptor of 
savage life with his sun-baked divinities of clay ; 
in fact, I might be able to point out the granite 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 91 

cousin of this Froebelian shape among the Egyp- 
tian Gods. Hardly, however, is he to be found 
in the Greek Pantheon, or even in the Greek 
Pandemonium. 

Still this Second Gift bears in itself the cre- 
ative Idea embodied, and is a world-maker ; a sort 
of demiurge we have already called it, and the 
rude statue of it already alluded to represents a 
divinely creative principle which is yet to unfold 
into fullness, and to realize itself in a veritable 
cosmos of forms. It is truly the Man-Gift, not 
only showing Man in rude sculpturesque outline 
embodied to vision, but also revealing Man as 
the spiritually generative energy of and within 
himself, and hkewise as the genetic source of the 
transformation of the whole material universe. 

Look again at its triune shape ; it is an em- 
bodied Ego, a materialized Psychosis, of a rather 
primitive cast, doubtless, yet deeply genuine, 
for the child and of the child. Undeveloped, one 
cannot help reiterating, not yet having sloughed 
off its prehistoric cuticle altogether, though 
mightily engaged in the process thereof ; Man it 
is assuredly, with head and trunk plainly visible, 
but he cannot walk, his feet are not yet evolved, 
nor are his hands. Man, yes, but Man in his 
tadpole stage — just look at that statue again — 
not yet able to march on two legs, though lustily 
wriggling toward the step of freedom . 

So we may seek to make a living fact out of 



92 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

this profoundly suggestive Gift. Its originative 
character we can imagine in many ways, and 
cast into many sorts of illustrations, still its 
creative soul is a thought, not an image, and in 
order to be adequately understood, must be 
thought anew, that is created anew in and by 
the spirit of the student. 

Historical, Froebel's conception of the Sec- 
ond Gift was a growth and a long one. But in 
his last written production of any length, the let- 
ter to Emma Bothman (reprinted by Lange, II. 
501), he shows that he has in mind this Gift in 
its present form — Ball, Cube, and Cylinder. 
The mentioned letter is dated May 25th, 1852; 
Froebel died June 21st, 1852, less than one month 
afterwards (according to most authorities, but 
some say the date of Froebel's death was July 
21st, 1852). 

If we go back a dozen years or more to Froe- 
bel's long essay on "The Sphere and Cube as 
second play-gift of the child," we find no Cylin- 
der, but the doll. This essay or series of essays, 
since there are several parts (^Lange^ II. 53; 
translation by Miss Jarvis, I. 70), was taken 
from the 8onntagshlatt^ which was published 
by Froebel in the years 1838 and 1840 (see 
Seidel's edition of Froebel's Works, Vol. II, 
Vorwort). Thus the intermediate form was de- 
veloped later ; somewhere about 1844 the Cylin- 
der as the third or mediating body had taken its 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS— THE SECOND. 93 

place in the Second Gift (Hanschmann, Lehen 
von FroeheU S. 327). 

But also the Cone appears prominently in one 
of his longer expositions (see Lange, II. 559. — 
trans, by Miss Jarvis, II., p. 306. On the Cone 
see p. 315 in the latter). Here he says directly 
that the Second Gift consists of four bodies, and 
gives his reasons why there should be so many. 
Still in the letter just cited he does not mention 
the Cone, but the Cylinder is the sole interme- 
diate form. So he must have rejected the Cone 
in the intervening years, and have retained 
simply the Cylinder. 

We may now seek to find the epoch when 
Froebel occupied himself specially with the 
Sphere, which is the beginning and source of his 
Gifts. In the year 1821 he wrote out and pub- 
lished his '* Aphorisms " among which are found 
the following reflections on the Sphere. We 
translate from Lange (I. 263) : — 

«* The spherical is the representation of multi- 
plicity (diversity) in unity, and of unity in 
multiplicity." 

*' The spherical is the representation of multi- 
plicity developing itself out of unity and the 
referring of all multiplicity back to unity." 

* * The spherical is the universal and the par- 
ticular, the general and the special, unity and 
individuality at the same time." 



94 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

*' Unity and multiplicity joined together in 
their greatest perfection is the spherical." 

" Everything develops its spherical nature to 
perfection only in this threefold way, that it 
strives to represent and does actually represent 
its essence in itself and through itself in its 
unity, individuality, and multiplicity." 

*' Everything shows this threefold representa- 
tion of its nature, is through the same closed 
(completed, geschlossen) , and is in and through 
the same alone perfectly intellegible and recog- 
nizable." (Very important this, as hinting the 
fundamental process of knowing.) 

" Everything obtains through the same (this 
threefold representation) its true end, and its 
true appreciation as a member of a whole." 
( Glied eines Ganzen, an intimation of Froebel's 
later Gliedganzes^ or member-whole.) 

''It is supremely the vocation of man to un- 
fold, to cultivate and to reahze his spherical 
nature, then the nature of the spherical in 
general." 

" To work consciously for the development of 
the spherical nature of a being means to educate 
that being." (Here the educative apphcation of 
his thought comes out.) 

" The law of the Sphere is the fundamental law 
of all true, adequate culture of mankind." 

Such was Froebel's grand grapple with the 
Sphere, seeking to seize it as it is in itself and as 



FB0EBEV8 PLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 95 

ti means of education. Many years later he will 
take up the Sphere again and incorporate it into 
his kindergarden for the training of the little 
child. 

The above aphorisms show a struggle, dark, 
difficult to understand fully unless you know 
pretty well beforehand what the author means. 
But he sees that the spherical principle and its 
movement run through all things and constitute 
their essence. And he also sees that this move- 
ment is inherently threefold, and just through 
such threefold process is it cognizable by the' 
Ego, which also has the same triple process (he 
does not say this last and probably does not see 
it, 3^et it is implicit in his statements). Likewise 
he shows an insioht into the educative bearing of 
the process of the Sphere (he calls it the spherical 
Jaw), which insight he had probably obtained 
chiefly at Keilhau in his practical work of 
teachino^. 

One other point should be noticed : the nomen- 
clature of the above passages. It is manifestly 
derived from the nature-philosophy of Schelling, 
which Froebel picked up at Jena in his youth. 
Moreover, the manner is not empirical, but 
deductive, or rather intuitive. 

We also know that Froebel began to reflect 
profoundly upon the spherical in nature and in 
man at Gottingen when a student there in 1811, 
ten years before the publication of the above 



96 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Aphorisms. He was led into this line of thought 
by the appearance of a comet in the Heavens, a 
sight which stirred him to the deepest thinking. 
Says he, in his autobiographical letter to the 
Duke of Meiningen (Lange, I. 103) : — 

*' Walking in the beautiful suburbs of Got- 
tingen till nearly midnight, I was suddenly 
surprised by a new phenomenon appearing in the 
starry skies above me. I knew very little about 
Astronomy, and so the existence of a great comet 
had remained unknown to me ; I discovered it, 
so to speak, by myself, and hence it produced 
within me a peculiar charm. It remained in the 
still nights an object of my contemplation, and 
the thought of the universal spherical law devel- 
oped itself and formed itself at that time 
particularly, and during those nocturnal walks, 
from which I often returned in order to fix the 
results of my thinking, and after a short sleep 
to pursue the further development of my mind." 

At Gottingen, then, when Froebel was twenty- 
nine years old, the Sphere, as the mediating 
principle between spirit and nature, had entered 
deeply into his thought-life. From the Sphere 
he had not yet made the transition to the Cube ; 
this no doubt came to him more or less distinctly 
through the study of crystallography with Pro- 
fessor Weiss, of Berlin, to which city he went on 
leaving Gottingen. Still, he has not one word 
about the Cube in his Aphorisms ; that fruit he 



FEOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 07 

plucked not till the Kiiidergarclen had ripened in 
his soul. 

We have already noticed that the language and 
manner of thinking shown in these Aphorisms 
recall the philosophical construction of nature, 
which is connected chiefly with the name of 
Schelling, but which was a mighty spiritual in- 
fluence working in the time. In this impulse 
Froebel shared to the end of life, and, more than 
any other man, carried it over into education. 
Undoubtedly he received its first dawnings as a 
student at Jena, where he was from 1799 to 
1801. During this time Schelling was lecturing 
at the University of Jena, and was the strongest 
influence there, probably, being in the meridian of 
his philosophic career. Froebel does not seem 
to have attended Schelling' s lectures, but the 
eager receptive youth must have heard much 
about his doctrines from brother Traugott and 
other fellow-students . Young Friedrich imbibed , 
doubtless obscurely and fragmentarily, the phi- 
losopher's view of nature as well as his termi- 
nology, both of which can be traced in his later 
writings, notably in " The Education of Man." 
It may be here remarked that the influence of 
Jena upon Froebel has never been adequately 
appreciated by any of his biographers. 

So we have reached back to the beginning of 
the development of the Froebehan Gifts in the 
soul of Froebel himself. For they were a con- 

7 



98 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP 

tinued evolution going through his whole mature 
life, from youth upwards ; it may be said that 
Froebel's spirit unfolded with his Gifts and into 
his Gifts, which are at least one very significant 
expression of the man in his striving for seK- 
realization. The Second Gift, including, as it 
does, the First Gift in the Ball, is truly the 
orginative or genetic Gift of the whole series, and 
Froebel's creative spirit poured itself out into 
the same at important stages of his life, which is 
connected together on an interior line by this 
Gift. These stages we shall briefly recapitulate 
in an ascending order, as they were before given 
in a descending order. 

I. Jena, 1799-1801. Schelling's influence. 
The dark brooding idea of the unity in man and 
the world begins to ferment, uttering itself in a 
vague philosophic nomenclature. Froebel was 
nineteen years old when he left Jena after a stay 
of nearly two years altogether. 

II. Gottingen, 1811. He finds an object 
which gives reality to his idea, namely the Sphere, 
in which he sees the oneness of spirit and nature. 
Thus his inner thought has found an outer form 
for its bearer. Twenty-nine years old. 

III. Keilhau, 1821. He now shows his in- 
sight into the pedagogical purpose of the Sphere, 
which is to become a grand means of human 
education. See the last aphorisms above cited. 
Thirty-nine years old. 



FROEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— THE SECOND. 99 

IV. Education of Man, 1826. In this work 
the Cube is added to the Sphere, and both are 
the results of force indwelHng in nature, which 
is especially seen in the production of crystals, 
all of which is educative. Forty-four years old. 

V. The Kindergarden, Blankenburg, 1837. 
The Sphere and the Cube have reached their 
educative purpose in the Second Gift, being 
employed for the unfolding of the child-mind. 
They are opposites, yet in unity; but the Cube 
is not distinctly derived from the Sphere. (See 
his essay on the Second Gift. ) Fifty-five years 
old. 

YI. About the 3 ear 1844 (Hanschmann in 
FroeheVs Lehen, s. 327) the intermediate forms 
are added, namely the Cylinder and apparently 
the Cone with it. Sixty-two years old. 

VII. His last statement (1852) drops the Cone 
and mentions the Ball, Cube, and Cylinder as the 
three forms of the Second Gift, which has 
remained as he left it down to the present. 
Seventy years old. 

Such is the development of Froebel himself into 
his Second Gift, a development running through 
more than fifty years of his life and receiving 
the last touch with the last thoughts of his last 
days. It begins with the vague, indefinite idea 
fermenting chaotically within the soul of the 
youth, and passes through various stages of 
clarification, till it attains its final shape within 



100 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

the soul of the old man. Undoubtedly he 
is struggling to obtain clearness himself; but 
with this effort is coupled another end, at first 
unconscious, yet becoming conscious with time; 
it is to find an educative means by which the 
httle child can be assisted to unfold into his spir- 
itual heritage, bringing him into harmony with 
his true self, with nature and with the Divine. 
In a deep and worthy sense Froebel himself was 
always a child, he unfolded as a child, yet with 
the creative power of a genius. Not till he 
created the instrumentalities for developing the 
child, did he himself develop fully and attain the 
final fruitage of his spirit. 

Looking over the works of his successors in the 
exposition of this Second Gift, we are compelled 
to say that they all drop far behind him in pro- 
f unity and in deep living intensity of purpose ; 
sometimes we have unwillingly to think that they 
have not rightly understood him. 



II. 

THE DERIVED (ilFTS. 

We now come to the series of the Gifts 
(quantitative), which distinctly point to the 
Second Gift as their origin. The}^ include all 
the rest of the Gifts so-called till the Occupa- 
tions, and are usually counted as eight, nine, or 
ten in number. The first six Gifts were desig- 
nated in their numerical order by Froebel him- 
self, and his designation of them has become 
settled. 

The chief term or category which characterizes 
these Gifts is, accordingly, Derivation; they all 
go back to the Cube and Sphere in plain ances- 
tral lineage. This Derivation takes place by 
division, abstraction, separation in some form; 
it belongs fundamentallv to the second stage of 

(101) 



102 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

the Psychosis. As the shapes are extended in 
space, are quantitative, the division is manifested 
to the senses, is made visible, and thus is adapted 
to the child. 

The line of Derivation running through all 
these Gifts, is to be carefully brought out, as it 
is that which connects them in a transparent 
unity which the child first feels and then sees, 
thereby acquiring his best lesson. 

The Derived Gifts, taken by themselves, pass 
through a triple process, of which the stages are 
the following : — 

A. Gifts of Concrete Magnitude, having all the 
dimensions — length, breadth, thickness — show- 
ing sensuous completeness. That is, they are 
soHds, and are derived directly from the Cube by 
visible separation. 

B. Gifts of Abstract Magnitude, in which the 
ideal separation or abstraction takes place from 
the Cube, producing the surface, line, point, 
which, however, are visibly re-embodied for the 
child in a solid. 

To the first belong the Third, Fourth, Fifth, 
and Sixth Gifts ; to the second belong the rest of 
the Gifts. 

C. The Return to Concrete Magnitude out of 
Abstract ; the point by its very nature turns about 
upon itseK and goes back, through line and sur- 
face, to the solid. This third stage, though 
absolutely necessary to the psychical movement. 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.^THE SECOND. 103 

needs no new Gift for its expression, but only a 
conforming adjustment of the old ones. 

Such is the general process underlying and 
linking together the Derived Quantitative Gifts. 
This process must be grasped not simply as the 
unity of opposites, but as the living movement of 
the mind which manifests itself in these external 
shapes. With them the child's Ego feels its 
own inthnate relationship, and is thereby set to 
work in its own inner process of unfolding. 

A. Gifts of Concrete Magnitude. These 
Gifts are solid and embrace what are usually 
called the Building Gifts. They belong to the 
first stage of the total Psychosis of the quanti- 
tative Gifts, as in them the Ego takes the 
immediate sensuous object in its material full- 
ness. They are geometrical primarily, but arith- 
metical secondarily, and then show the union of 
both in measure or mensuration. For this reason 
they are architectural, since all architecture has 
form and number, and must measure the sohd 
form by means of number. 

The Gifts of Concrete Magnitude will also 
show in themselves the complete process of the 
Ego, which made them, and in the present case 
made them for the purpose of unfolding itself. 
The three stages will be as follows : — 

1. The rectilineal series^ in which straight or 
right lines dominate the forms. The above meii- 



104 THE FSYCHOLOGY OF 

tioned Gifts (Third to Sixth inclusive) are wholly 
rectilineal and mostly rectangular. This is a one- 
sidedness even in a geometrical aspect, which 
loudly calls for a new adjustment. Hence the 
following : — 

2. The curvilineal series^ in which the curved 
line finds its recognition. But this series was not 
elaborated by Froebel, though he seems to have 
thought of it. Nor has it been wrought out to 
its due fullness by any of his successors, though 
Goldammer has made a good beginning. 

3. The unification of the rectilineal and curvi- 
lineal elements^ by which means some of the most 
important architectural forms of the past can be 
shown. For the right line and the curved line, 
though different, at last belong together and 
must be built together in the complete edifice. 
The architecture of the human race can now be 
illustrated and rebuilt in its essential features by 
these little blocks for the use of children. 

The distinction between the rectilineal and the 
curvilineal o-oes back to the two kinds of hues, 
the diametral and the peripheral, implicit in the 
Sphere. But these two kinds of lines will become 
completely separate and explicit in the Gifts of 
Abstract Magnitude (in the Sticks and Rings). 
At present the line is still held fast in the solid, 
though visible; it is not yet free. 

It may be said here, that, without the curvi- 
lineal element the derivation from the Second 



FBOEBEV 8 PLAY GIFTS.~THE SECOND. 105 

Gift is incomplete, since there are no round solid 
forms corresponding to the Sphere and Cylinder. 
Yet rotundity comes first in the genetic process, 
so that the cur^dlineal may be regarded as deeper 
than the rectilineal, since it reaches further back, 
indeed it returns to the very origin of the Gifts 
in their generating shape, the Ball. 

To leave out the curvilineal element, there- 
fore, deeply violates a well-known Froebelian 
principle, namely, to employ all the material 
which we once introduce, and not to have any 
piece left after our construction, as litter on the 
table or in the mind. Particularly the Cylin- 
der — what is the use of it, unless it too be 
ge-netic, the source of forms? 

At present, however, Ave shall drop this subject 
and pass to the rectilineal Gifts, which lie before 
us for exposition. This, in order to be educa- 
tive, must bring into prominence the psychical 
movement which lies implicit in the child's mind, 
but which is brought out and made explicit by 
these Gifts, whose innermost process is in deep 
correspondence with the budding Ego. 

1. The rectilineal series. This is what Ave are 
now to set forth in some detail. These Gifts are 
four in number (Third to Sixth inclusive), are 
all soKds of various sizes and shapes, and are 
all derived directly from the Cube by division. 

We have alreadv noticed the fondness of 



106 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Froebel for right lines. His was a crystallo- 
graphic spirit both by nature and by training. 
Moreover, this training extended to architecture, 
especially the Greek, which is almost wholly 
rectilineal and rectangular. And in the moral 
nature of Froebel we think we can trace an 
analogy to the rectilineal. He was a man of 
rectitude, a straight-lined character even to 
obstinacy at times. 

The rectihneal series embraces what are usually 
called the Building Gifts of the Kindergarden. 
As before indicated, man begins to use the right- 
lined forms in his early construction; he first 
gets rid of the round shapes of nature. Still he 
returns to the round shape, makes it over, and 
adjusts it anew to his rectihneal forms. This 
movement we shall see justify itself in the hist ^ry 
of architecture. Hence the curvilineal element 
must be added to complete the process within and 
without. 

Having laid out in advance these divisions, and 
subdivisions, whose justification is to be ade- 
quately [seen at the end, we shall proceed to give 
some special remarks on the Building Gifts in 
succession. 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE THJBD. 107 



THE THIRD (4IFT. 

Froiii the i)recediiig Gift the Cii))e is taken 
and repeated in the present Gift; thus the con- 
nection is manifest. Still, difference enters also ; 
this Cube is divided into eight small Cubes, the 
former having the size of two inches, the latter 
one inch. The two-inch Cube is thus halved 
each way, that is, according to its three dimen- 
sions, length, breadth, and height. 

Here we observe the fact of separation visibly 
presented to the child, and this separation pro- 
ductive of objects of a similar kind, though 
smaller than their parent ; they may be called 
the lesser members, the children of the Cube 
famil}^ 

Thus the Derived Gifts, of which this is the 
first, begin with the seen act of separation. Such 
we must regard as the characteristic fact of it, 
for all Derivation is a birth, is in some manner a 
separation, a dividing of the thing from its source. 
The Cube in the preceding Gift was also derived 
by separation from the Sphere, but this separa- 
tion was internal, ideal, whereas the present 
separation is external, visible, manifest to the 
senses of tlie child. Or we may say that the first 



108 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

or ideal separation of the preceding Grift is made 
real in the present Gift. 

At the same time the child, after separating, 
can put together again, and thereby show the 
return to unity, which, though external, sug- 
gests always the inner process of the Ego. Then 
he can begin to combine several of these cubical 
forms and so bring to light new forms ; in this 
way he starts to using the principle which runs 
through all the quantitative Grifts, that of exter- 
nal combination to produce forms. 

In this Third Gift the child will be acquiring 
slowly the conception of size (quantitative or 
space-occupying) as distinguished from form 
(qualitative) , since the forms are the same, while 
the sizes are of two kinds. Moreover counting 
with incipient arithmetical operations will start into 
activity, as the child sees the one become two by 
separation, then each of these two is separated 
again, and finally each of the fours is separated. 
Thus he sees a unit reached at which separation 
stops, and the movement begins the other way. 
This final unit is worthy of a name : it is the unit 
of measurement, and the returning process is 
properly that of measure, and this unit (the 
small Cube) measures the total object (the large 
Cube). 

Such is the most important fact of the present 
Gift. The cubic inch, which is now visible, is 
the unit of all measurement of solids. By means 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTJS.-^THE THIRD. 109 

of it and its multiples (cubic feet, cubic yards, 
etc.) the solid contents of the whole earth are 
measured and expressed. Nay, the child beholds 
the actual unit, which is the cubic inch, and the 
process of measuring, though he may not be able 
to count the number of cubic inches in the hirge 
Cube. Still the principle he sees and he will not 
lose it. The skillful kindergardner will be able 
to play this process of measurement in a number 
of engaging ways, so that the child mil get pos- 
session of a veritable modulus or measuring 
jDrinciple of the material universe, or indeed of 
all space. Just that little wooden cubic inch has 
such a magic power ! 

From the cubic inch is derived directly the 
square inch, which is the unit of measurement 
for all surfaces, with its multiples (square feet, 
square yards, square miles, etc.). So we meas- 
ure the earth's surface, and draw boundaries in 
geography, and compare the size of countries. 
In this way the little child is getting into his 
head the primary measuring principle for the 
whole world. By a like derivation we can get 
the line which is now the linear inch made visible 
in the small Cube, by means of which the child 
slowly acquires a judgment of length and dis- 
tance. Of course the kindergarden Gift is 
adjusted to the legal standard of measurement. 

Moreover, this inch is what the race, or the 
Anglo-Saxon portion of it, has adopted as its 



110 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

principle of measurement, and the child is follow- 
ing therein the footsteps of his kin and kind. 
Undoubtedly the inch must be derived, deter- 
mined, obtained by some process — but this need 
not trouble us here. For us and for the child 
the inch is something given — a Gift — of which 
we have to take possession and learn to use. 

Now we see the fundamental necessity of the 
small Cube and the large Cube in the present 
Gift — only thereby can the child get the con- 
ception of measure, and start to comparing the 
material world quantitatively. And this quanti- 
tative measurement of sensuous objects rises into 
a great spiritual fact in judgment and reasoning. 

Language has an important place in this Gift, 
as every kindergardner knows. The position 
must be accurately designated, and the move- 
ments determined by the word of command — all 
of which requires a careful use of speech. 

The Third Gift, being the first one of the 
Building Gifts is a kind of overture to what 
follows ; out of it flows the silent music of con- 
struction. The child will see the Cube or cuboidal 
forms in the edifices around him ; especially he 
will notice the large hewn stone in foundations 
and walls, if he lives in city or town. The house 
itself, apart from its sloping roof, has usualh^ 
some shape approaching the Cube. Man's archi- 
tectonic soul might almost be said to be cubical, 
especially at its opening, for the Cube seems to 



FBOEBLVS PLAY QIFTS.-THE THIRD. Ill 

be that form which it builds about itself as its 
outer garment. The hut, the room inside, the 
door and window, even the materials of stone and 
brick suggest the Cube as their typical, origina- 
tive shape. The builder must first set his house 
firmly on the ground, like the face of a Cube on 
the child's table; then he constructs the other 
sides around himself and overhead, whereby he 
has a home for his inner life and that of his 
family. He goes inside of a Cube in order to 
live and to have protection ; for this shape does 
not rock on its foundation, and it has all its 
corners, lines, and surfaces explicit against the 
outer world, standing ever prepared for an assault 
from Nature's rude elemental forces, a fortress 
outside, a home for the nestlings inside. 

Another characteristic of the present Gift has 
been often emphasized ; it satisfies, by its division 
through the center and the visible results thereof, 
the child's stronoj bent for seeinor the inside of 
things. Has not his own home this inside, has not 
he too? So he often breaks his toy as soon as 
he takes it into his hand. He has the presenti- 
ment that the outside is not the true reality, that 
it is sornehow determined from the inside as he 
is himself. For he soon becomes aware that 
every motion of his limbs has its inner cause, his 
outward manifestation simply tells w^hat is inward. 
So the getting to the point which determines 
what appears is his strongest aspiration, and its 



112 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

fulfillment brings his greatest pleasure. If he 
cuts open the apple or the orange and beholds 
the seed, he is really at the source of the apple 
or the orange, though he does not know it; he 
sees the point whence the fruit came, he sees the 
central point which determined the round ball, 
its genetic principle. Still he cannot see the 
total vegetable process by which the seed becomes 
the apple. But he can see directly with outer 
vision the Cube and its divisions, by which the 
one larger Cube (say as parent) generates many 
smaller similar Cubes (say as children). 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTiS.^THE THIRD. 113 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE THIRD GIFT. 

1. As the outer separative fact and the inner 
separative act are the most striking and significant 
matters in this Third Gift, we shall do well in 
penetrating to its psychological import. The 
infant loves the play of separation and return, 
and will amuse itself for a long time with the 
simplest form thereof. It will take off the Kd of 
a small box and put the same back again over 
and over in dozens of repetitions, out of pure 
delight at the process. We need hardly remind 
the reader that this process is really that of the 
child's own Ego, in an external manifestion. 
The child, therefore, is finding himself, he is 
getting to know what he is within by this outer 
play ; he is educating himself ! 

By means of the Third Gift vrith its division, 
the child is developing the separative, analytic, 
discriminating power of mind. He must practice 
the separative stage of the Ego, which is the 
first unfolding out of his implicit, potential state, 
and corresponds to the bud separating itself into 
the full-blown flower. His means of practice 
must be found in the forms of the sense-world, 
especially in this Third Gift, which also shows 
so well the return out of the separation. 



114 . THE PSYCHOLOGY OP 

In this process the first separation which the 
child makes is to distinguish himself from the 
block as an object; thus he has primarily to 
make the distinction between himself and what is 
not himself (technically expressed, between Ego 
and non-Ego). Thereby he has the ground of 
all separation, division, distinction within him- 
self, ideally; this he finds to be real also in the 
Cube, which, in a manner similar to himself, 
divides within itself. Truly he is getting most 
valuable experience, he is finding out that the 
whole material world is separable, in fact is just 
the separable, divisible, derived, not the self- 
centered or the self-determined. 

Still he must always re-combine the separated ; 
he must not remain destructive, but must be 
constructive, nay, he must come back to himself 
through reconstruction. This is the return, 
which, though outward, is also inward, having a 
response in the child's own Ego. 

Here lies the deepest function of the kinder- 
gar dner. She gives to the child the established, 
the prescribed — this Gift — but in order that he 
may work it over into himself and thereby reach 
the process of his freedom. She is a kind of 
Providence over the child, yet with the one grand 
end of helping make him free. For the child is 
not free at first hand, nor is the man; he must 
make himself free. 

2. We can still further carry out the thought 



d 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE THIRD. 115 

of measurement, which belongs to this Third 
Gift through the division of the Cube into Cubes. 
It contains a subtle psychological process which 
we can find by a little study in the right 
direction. 

The Cube Avith which the Gift starts, is imme- 
diate as a form of magnitude, is limited in space ; 
it takes up so much extension, it has a bound on 
the outside. In this first stage it shows simple 
quantity {quantum) or magnitude. 

Then we pass to the second stage, that of 
separation, in which the Cube is divided into 
Cubes, and the conception of number enters; 
how many {quanta) is now the question, not 
how much. Quantity is thus discrete, and the 
one (Cube) has become many ones (Cubes). 

Here we have reached the unit of measure- 
ment, and with it the third stage of the psychical 
process in which this last unit returns and meas- 
ures the first limited quantity (9'i«an/?rm). The 
question now is, How-man}^ (Cubes) in the How- 
much (the one Cube)? How many cubic inches 
in the given solid? This is measure. 

Such is the Psychosis of quantity, as illus- 
trated neatly and clearly by the Third Gift with 
its Cube and Cubes. We shall set down this 
process briefly in outline. 

(1). How much — simple magnitude. 

( 2 ) . How many — number . 

(3). How many in How much — measure. 



116 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

All of which the child, simply observing and 
then performing the operations of the Third 
Gift, acquires unconsciously, whereby he has 
made a start in geometry, in arithmetic, and in 
their unity, which is measure (or mensuration). 

It may be said that these Gifts show the 
primary Mathesis, or the becoming of Mathe- 
matics, which is the beginning of man's com- 
pleter mastery over nature, and the primordial 
assertion of himseK as spirit. We may still find 
in ourselves a sympathetic response to the idea 
of ancient Pythagoras that number is a God, or 
at least a divine manifestation of a spirit-world. 
But if the old Greek altitude be a little too great 
for us in these days, we may come down to earth 
in the thought that the child is beo^inninoj in this 
Third Gift to measure all things — first, things 
external, from which he will certainly pass to 
things internal, measuring them also by some 
standard or criterion, ultimately himself, or his 
Ego. 

3. We may note again that the genetic process 
in the Third Gift is external, visible, an act of 
material separation, producing from the one large 
Cube the little Cubes in an interesting family of 
eight. 

But if we compare this open genetic process of 
the Third Gift with the secret, invisible process 
of the Second Gift, the contrast is striking. 
The oreneration of the Cube from the Ball is a 



FBOEBEV 8 PLAY GIFTS.— THE THIBD. 117 

work involving thought, and is far more difficult 
for the child, who can see with his eves the pro- 
ducing act of the Third Gift. Hence the one is 
more a thought-gift, the other more a sense-gift. 

Tiie Third Gift, therefore, is best for intro- 
ducing to the child the genetic idea which runs 
through all the Gifts and Occupation, and which 
he is to unfold within himself, coming back to 
the inner and deeper phase of the Second Gift 
when he is more fully developed. 

4. The division of the Cube by three intersect- 
ing planes which cross at right angles to one 
another, and unite at the center, has already 
suggested the Third Gift. The skeleton Cube, 
previously described, by means of its paper 
planes shows the eight small Cubes. The Third 
Gift springs directly out of the process of the 
Second Gift, which is verily the originative Gift. 

Thus the Third Gift shows a stag^e of evolu- 
tion out of what has gone before, and presents 
to the child a Little fortune in the shape of men- 
tal training through play. It brings to him 
form, number, and chiefly measure; it calls 
forth arrangement, location, speech; it wakens 
his judgment, and starts his building soul to 
work. Especially does he begin to verify that 
ancient definition of man as the " measure of all 
things." 



118 THE PSYCROLOQY OF 



THE FOURTH GIFT. 

The two-inch Cube is again taken as the start- 
ing-point, whereby the line of connection with 
what has gone before is visibly kept up, Divis- 
ion is also introduced, but in a new way; the 
Cube is first halved, then each of these halves is 
halved at right angles to the previous cut ; finally 
each of these four pieces is halved, not cross- 
wise into a Cube (as in the Third Gift) but 
lengthwise into a Parallelopiped or Brick. The 
first two cuts are the same as in the Third Gift, 
the last two cuts make the difference of form 
by the difference of direction, which is longitu- 
dinal, thus producing a long block (or oblong). 

Mark, then, this change of division, which is 
really a change of derivation, so that the derived 
blocks have a new shape. The result is we see a 
Gift with eight Bricks — forms oblong, not 
cubical. This manner of division is always to be 
carefully noted, for it leads back to the manner 
of genesis, the movement of creation, w^hich 
may be compared with generation by division in 
Natural Science (sometimes called fissiparism). 

Thus the Cube in the present Gift has pro- 
duced a shape unlike itself in shape, whereas in 



FBOEBEUS FLAY GIFTS.-THE FOURTH. 119 

the previous Gift the shape produced was like 
its own — the cubical — though not of like size. 
The parent has now begotten a child of a more 
deeply different character, not merely his own 
picture in miniature (as in the Third Gift), but 
of another aspect and behavior. 

Now the character of the child must be pro- 
nounced to be a decided advance upon that of the 
parent, taking the human as the criterion. The 
Cube has begotten the Brick, but the latter is 
more varied, more versatile, more man-like than 
the former. Let us compare. The Cube, though 
a stable, is a stolid being; the same thing which- 
ever way you place him; sameness, indifference, 
from whatever point you look at him ; a figure 
whose nature is to be ahnost wholly ])()ttoni ; try to 
elevate him a little, raise him up on his corner or 
his edge; now let go, and, behold! he falls back 
upon his broad base with a supreme content 
yet with a stolidity which is captivating to the 
scoffer, but creates despair in the heart of the 
benefactor. We might almost call him a swine 
for thesohd comfort he takes in lying down, and 
we almost hear his grunt. Indeed why is not 
that expressive term, solid comfort, originally 
derived from the Cube, the self-satisfied solid? 

But we have strangely disturbed this phleg- 
matic repose of the Cube by the new process to 
which we have subjected it. We have diWded it, 
not according to the three dimensions but accord- 



120 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

ing to two — say, height and breadth ; behold the 
result. The third dimension, length, remains 
undivided, and in that state appears in ever}^ 
block of the Gift. Thus length is emphasized ; 
each block is twice as long as it was in the pre- 
vious Gift, and the whole Fourth Gift taken as 
a line is twice as long; as the Third Gift taken as 
a line. Surely the movement is toward the sur- 
face and the line, ideal elements of magnitude, 
which are here prophesied, and which are here- 
after to come forth in their own right. 

Let us now take a glance at the Brick. First 
of all, he can stand upright, like a human being, 
even if a little tottering; when he lies down, he 
can turn over on his side — first on his right side, 
then on his left side, like many another poor 
mortal seeking repose. To be sure, when he 
does lie on his back, he is as flat as the Cube, 
yes, even flatter. Then he is slumbering, with 
all his capabilities not only at rest but asleep. 
Manifestly the Fourth Gift shows an approach 
toward the human, when compared with the 
Third Gift ; there is an evolution out of a lower 
more homogeneous form into a higher, more 
heterogeneous form. 

This fact will be further emphasized by noting 
that the Brick has differences in its parts, in 
itself. That is, the Brick is not only different 
from the Cube, but is different within itself. 
Three faces of it di:ffer from each other — which 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS. — THE FOUBTH. 121 

we shall designate as the flat face, the side face, 
and the end face. Each of the three dimen- 
sions — length, breadth, height, is represented 
differently, by a different surface in size and 
form, whereas in the Cube the three dimensions 
are the same. Thus into the shape itself differ- 
ence has entered — difference of dimensions, 
which thereby are contrasted with one another in 
the same block. 

It is manifest that the simple implicit unity of 
the Cube, in which all three dimensions were 
alike and indifferent, has been broken up by the 
Fourth Gift and differenced — all three being 
different in the Brick, and likewise beings made 
visible. Hence the child can now perceive and 
contrast length, breadth, and height in the pres- 
ent Gift, and learn the names corresponding. 
Moreover he can begin to acquire the idea of 
proportion, as these dimensions are here propor- 
tionate : the breadth is twice the height, and the 
length is twice the breadth, or four times the 
height. So the proportion 1:2:4 becomes a 
visibly attested fact in this Fourth Gift. 

Moreover, the child will begin to catch the 
glimmer of a psychical process in these three 
different faces of the brick, each of which has 
one line in common with the other two faces, the 
whole surface being bounded by the repetition of 
two different lines. For instance, the flat face 
is the largest in size, and so has in it the least 



122 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

difference. On the contrary, the end face is the 
least in size, and so has in it the most difference. 
Finally the side face is intermediate, being 
bounded by the shortest line in common with the 
end face and by the longest line in common with 
the flat face. Thus we catch the faint outlines 
of a Psychosis in these three faces, very external 
and shadowy as being spatial, yet hinting in its 
triple process the genetic source of the three 
faces and of the three dimensions — length, 
breadth, and height — hinting also the reason 
why there are three, only three, and no fourth 
dimension. 

In each Brick each face is repeated, is double, 
and the two look in opposite directions — in 
which again difference appears. Then the Brick 
is repeated seven times, making eight pieces in alio 

The next matter coming up in the considera- 
tion of the present Gift is combination. Herein 
the field is far larger, more varied and interesting 
than in the preceding Gift. The power of in- 
closing space is much greater in the Bricks than 
in the Cubes, for the Brick is a Cube flattened 
out to twice its length. 

Also we should notice the different kinds of 
superposition, of which the Cube has only* one 
kind, while the present Gift has three kinds — 
end to end, side to side, face to face. Then 
these three primary kinds of superposition are 
combinable in an almost infinite diversity of ways 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— TEE FOURTH. 123 

with one another, showing a magic power of 
metamorphosis out of the simplest forms. No 
wonder that the elementary form of so much of 
man's construction goes back to the Brick. 

The Cube has no such innate power, as we 
may name it. The reason is that the Cube has 
no diversity in itself, in its own nature ; it is every- 
where alike, in length, breadth, height. But the 
Brick has just this diversity within itself, each 
dimension is different, and this difference is car- 
ried over into every form constructed of it. The 
indifference of the Cube destroys its formative 
power. 

But with this increase of formability in the 
Fourth Gift there is need of a corresponding 
increase of skill in manipulation. The hand of 
the child now gets unusual lessons in delicacy of 
movement, and his eye must employ niceties of 
discernment never before called forth. Let him 
stand the eight Bricks end to end, one on top of 
the other ; it is quite a discipline, not only for hand 
and ej^e, but also for the inner spirit. Surely 
the child has to balance himself within before he 
can perform this act outside ; his mental line of 
gravitation must be put within its base, before he 
can adjust the physical hne of gravitation in cor- 
respondence. The equilibrium of the blocks 
compels the equilibrium of his Ego, which has to 
pass from the unbalanced to the balanced in this 
Gift, from the scattered to the collected. 



124 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

It has long been noted by observers that the 
child is much fonder of the Fourth than of the 
Third Gift. The reason becomes obvious from 
the preceding statements. The Cube is monoto- 
nous, has in it too little difference to call forth 
the separative stage of his mind, which is really 
his creative energy. But the Brick has diversity 
in its very form, yes a triple diversity, which at 
once appeals to him because it corresponds to the 
triple activity of his Ego, which is thus roused 
from its dormant state by the voice of the outer 
object attuned to his own soul. 



FH OEBEU S FLA Y GIFTS. — THE FO UR TH. 125 



OBSERVATIONS OX THE FOURTH GIFT. 

1. A very significant point in the Fourth Gift 
is its power of inclosure, which is the main ele- 
ment of it as a Building Gift. For all houses are 
inelosures, and the walls are made of some kind 
of block, — stone, wood, brick. The child may 
begin to remake in this gift the first faint out- 
line of his own abode, the house where he was 
born, which in one way or other he has to recon- 
struct at some time for himself, though it has to 
be criven him at the start. 

The Third Gift has a very small power of 
inclosure ; the eight Cubes are able to inclose 
just one of their kind, when completely used for 
a wall. But the Fourth Gift has a relatively 
great power of inclosure, which varies from the 
size of two Cubes up to twelve and more. There 
are three fundamental ways of inclosing through 
the Bricks : by placing them together on the 
end-face, on the side-face, and on the flat-face. 
Each of these three ways of inclosure has two 
different forms, the oblong and the square; the 
latter will inclose more than the former. The 
Cubes of the Third Gift, however, when used as 
a complete wall, will produce no oblong form, 



126 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

but simply the square form, inside of which is the 
empty square. The diversity of the Fourth Gift, 
or, we may say, the versatihty of it, is, in this 
regard, marked by a striking contrast with the 
stohd conservatism of the Third Gift, which, 
amid all its changes, cannot be driven from its 
square or cubical form, or only with great 
unwillingness. 

Indeed two very different temperaments they 
have, these two Gifts; the one phlegmatic, we 
were going to say Teutonic, but that is not exactly 
fair, especially to our beloved Teuton Froebel. 
The other is sano^uineous, we were oroino^ to sav 
American, changeful, adjustable, possibly a little 
volatile, certainly capable of presenting a num- 
ber of different sides to the world by merely 
turning over. 

2. Still the Third Gift has its own special 
province, its own function, which it is to fulfill 
in the organism of these Gifts. We have already 
said that it was the measurer, that it had the 
modulus or measuring unit for all space and all 
matter. Accordingly the Cube is used as the 
measurer of the Brick in all its shapes, as well as 
of what it incloses. For instance, the child puts 
the Cube inside the inclosed space which the 
flat sides of the Brick placed together produces, 
and he find show many Cubes it will hold. Thus 
he starts to measuring his little universe, and he 
begins to behold in it an order, whereby cosmos 



FB OEBEV S PL A Y GIFTS.— THE FO UR TH. 127 

primordially rose out of ehoas, and will rise 
ao^ain out of his chaotic little soul. 

So the Third Gift retains its character and 
function, it is not by any means lost or to be 
lost in the multiplicity and changefulness of the 
chameleon-like Fourth Gift. Its very solidity 
and permanence makes it the basis of measure- 
ment, for the standard ought not to change. 
Its fixed character causes it to be a fixed criterion 
for guaging anything. The objections which 
have been uro^ed ao^ainst the Third Gift on 
account of its lack of variety and variability, are 
really in its favor when it is regarded in its true 
function, that of furnishing the measuring unit 
to the child, and also to the man. 

3. In such fashion wx may unite in a kind of 
marriage the Third and Fourth Gifts, and make 
the union a happy one. The heavy Cube and 
the versatile Brick — each has its own part and 
place in the kindergarden family. In a number 
of respects they are alike, each has eight corners, 
twelve edges, six sides, thus hinting the common 
derivation which we saw coming forth from the 
Sphere. Both are rectilinear and rectangular, 
though in different ways. 

4. Another analogy we may draw, taken from 
the past nations of the world, though such anal- 
ogy must not be pushed too far. The Cube and 
the square are more Egyptian, the Brick and 
the parallelogram are more Greek. The pyra- 



128 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

midal form, which belongs with such tremendous 
emphasis to the valley of the Nile, rises to a 
point out of a Cube, as already set forth ; the 
form of a Greek temple was that of the oblong 
parallelopiped — the Brick with a slanting roof 
set on top. The ground plan, the faces and 
sides of the Parthenon are parallelograms, as 
well as the temenos or sacred inclosure. Egyp- 
tian art is massive like the Cube, heavy, fixed, 
=linfree, monotonous, full of samenesss and self- 
repetition to^a surprising degree — think of those 
six hundred sphinxes and more ranged in two 
lines alonof each side of the road at Luxor. 
Greek art has variety, has freedom, and thus 
strikes the key-note of all artistic form for the 
future. Yet both Egypt and Greece contributed 
mightily to the culture of the human race ; both 
peoples, we would fain think, have a faint, far- 
off reflection in these two play-gifts of Froebel, 
intended for the little child who is to play over 
in his way the history of humanity. So we may 
say, if we keep in the bounds of moderation, that 
the Third Gift is an Egyptian, and the Fourth 
Gift a Greek. 

5. The Brick has varying degrees of stability, 
as an offset to its versatility ; the Cube has one 
and the same degree of stability, as an offset to 
its stolidity. Each has its drawbacks along with 
its advantages. Place the Bricks erect in a row, 
and each seems to stand up like a man ; but a 



FBOEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— THE FOUBTH. 129 

little blow from the outside upsets it, and if it 
fulls against its neighbor, the whole row goes 
down. You cannot do that with a Cube or a 
row of Cubes; it presents the same stolid, stoical 
face to the blow of fate ; though you tumble it 
over, you cannot upset it, as it presents to you 
exactly the same look without the least twitch or 
distortion of feature, changeless as the face of 
the Sphinx. I do not think that I like very well 
that play of the Bricks in which the whole row 
is made to fall by some external impact, though 
undoubtedly the children are fond of it, and it 
seems to have the approval of Froebel. But it 
has too strong a flavor of external determination, 
of unfreedom, in flne, of fatalism, which is cer- 
tainly not to become the belief of the child, at 
least not in a free land. Not too much of that 
play, my dear kindergardner. Rather that other 
play of equilibrium, which cultivates the well- 
balanced soul within, erecting a lofty monument 
of eight Bricks end on end, without its toppling. 
A httle feat of daring it is, which, however, can 
be done with perfect safety by keeping the center 
of gravity always inside the base. 

It is true that the historic parallel already 
hinted holds good here : the Greek world, with 
all its genius and versatility, was at last struck 
by the blow of fate, coming from an outer might, 
which hurled it as a nation to the ground, never 
to rise again in its ancient glory. Well, that 

9 



130 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

blow of fate struck Egypt too, which stood the 
pummeling thousands of years, it may be said, 
before the Cube was broken to pieces. But the 
pyramid and the sphinx are there yet. 

6. The Brick shows more the surface, less the 
solid ; is more ideal, less material than the Cube ; 
shows a moyement from Concrete towards 
Abstract Magnitude. 

It has a triple diversity, yet also repetition; 
but it is just this diversity which is repeated. 
Thus the Brick may be called double-faced ; the 
front face which is seen, suggests the threefold 
variation — length, breadth, thickness; but the 
rear face which is unseen, is simply a copy of 
the front face; so the Brick, though double- 
faced, is honest. 



FBOEBEL'8 PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIFTH. 131 



THE FIFTH GIFT. 

The Cube is again taken as the starting-point 
in the present Gift, but it is the three-inch Cube. 
It is now divided into three sections, in three 
different ways — length, breadth, and height. 
The result is 27 one-inch Cubes, in contrast with 
the 8 one-inch Cubes of the Third Gift. Here 
we see the connection between these two Gifts, as 
well as their primary difference. The unit of 
measure is the same, but in the one case there is 
the cube of two, and in the other case the cube 
of three. 

Here it is necessary for the student to begin to 
consider the reverse process in both these Gifts. 
If the large Cube be taken as the unit (which is 
possible), we have the regressive or fractional 
series ; for instance, in the two-inch Cube (Third 
Gift) it is V2, V4, Vs ; while in the three-inch Cube it 
is Vs, V9, V27. To be sure, this regressive or frac- 
tional series is as yet implicit, not yet unfolded, 
but is soon to be unfolded ; we shall see it make 
its appearance in the course of the present Gift, 
in which the fractional act is made external and 
visible to the child. 

Such is the primary division or derivation of 



132 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

the rifth Gift; but now comes the secondary 
division which is wholly different in kind from 
any division heretofore. This is the diagonal 
division. Three of the one-inch Cubes are 
halved by a diagonal line bisecting opposite 
right angles, making six triangular half -Cubes 
(prisms). Then still another cut at right angles 
to the preceding cut gives four quarter-Cubes, 
making twelve such pieces for three Cubes. 

As the result of the foregoing divisions we 
have before us the Fifth Gift, made up of 6 
triangular half -Cubes, 12 triangular quarter- 
Cubes, one-half in size but the same in form, 
and 21 Cubes — 39 pieces in all. 

We may now study the various kinds of dif- 
ference which have been introduced by the above 
divisions. First of all, the derived forms are in 
part like and in part unlike the total Gift, which 
is a Cube. Thus they unite in this regard the 
Third and the Fourth Gifts, combining the like- 
ness and theunlikeness of both. Herein we may 
note the advance of the Fifth Gift. In the sec- 
ond place, the derived forms differ from one 
another in part, and in part resemble one 
another. To be more precise, there are three 
sets of descendants from the ancestral Cube in 
the present household ; first, there are the chil- 
dren, the small Cubes, just Uke the parent in 
form, only not so large; secondly, there are the 
grandchildren, the half -Cubes, sprung of the chil- 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— TEE FIFTH. 133 

dren, the small Cubes, but not resembling father 
or grandfather in form, or just half like him ; 
finally there are the great-grandchildren, the 
little quarter-Cubes, sprung of the half -Cubes, 
sprung of the little Cubes, sprung of the big 
Cube. Such a lengthy genealogy rises before 
our astonished eyes in this business — a gene- 
alogy not temporal but spiritual. 

In the third place, we must consider the differ- 
ences which are in the form taken by itself — 
differences in dimension. Here the three sets of 
descendants show diversity, each being marked 
by its peculiar traits, each having its own individ- 
uality. The Cube has no difference in the three 
dimensions, being alike in length, breadth, and 
height. But the half -Cube has within itself two 
different dimensions, so too the quarter-Cube, 
which, however, differs from the half -Cube in 
size. It may be here added, in parenthesis, that 
the perpendicular height of these triangular 
prisms is not considered, otherwise each of the 
three dimensions in them would be different. 

The foregoing account seeks to describe the 
nature and the genesis of the Fifth Gift. Next 
we ask for its central fact, its very heart. 
What is the distinguishing part of it ? Can 
we put our finger upon its essential character- 
istic ? 

Undoubtedly the diagonal division is the dis- 
tinctive thing in the present Gift. It introduces 



134 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

a new geometric principle, the bisection of an 
angle, not of a line as hitherto. It calls up a 
new geometric form, the triangle; previously we 
have seen only quadrangular shapes (except those 
made by external combination). Moreover it 
brings to view a new angle, the acute ; hitherto 
we have had only right angles. We see plainly 
that a vast fresh vein of geometric wealth has 
been opened ; to the sides of the figure have been 
added angles, and to the quadrangular has been 
added the triangular. On account of this pro- 
fusion of geometrical elements the present 
Gift is especially rich in symmetrical forms 
(usually called by kindergardners forms of 
beauty) which are mainly based on balanced 
geometric relations. Indeed these forms are 
much better adapted to this than to any other 
Gift, for the Fifth Gift is the most completely 
geometrical of all the Building Gifts. 

But that which we may set down as the most 
important educative fact of the Gift is that the 
fraction now appears to the vision of the child, 
and, more remotely, the measurement by frac- 
tions. In the Third and Fourth Gifts we have had 
the one-inch Cube as the unit of measurement; 
but in the present (Fifth) Gift we have also the 
one-inch Cube bi-sected and doubly bi-sected; 
the result is the appearance of the fraction of 
the inch. That is, the unit of measure now 
measures not simply wholes of itself, but parts 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS— THE FIFTH. 135 

of itself likewise ; it works by division as well as 
by multiplication. 

Thus the fraction becomes explicit in the pres- 
ent Gift, explicit in thought ; previously it has 
been implicit in thought, the fractional possibility 
of the Third Gift was not developed in treating 
of that Gift. But now we go ])ack to it and be- 
hold our new knowledge applicable there also ; 
the child is likewise to return and see the new 
fact in the old play. In the Third Gift Ave may 
now unfold the fractional scries of two, namely, 
V2, ^/4, ^/s ; and in the Fifth Gift we still further 
unfold the fractional series of three, namely, I/3, 
V9, V27. Thus Ave have developed for the child 
the two kinds of series, multiplicative and frac- 
tional, in tAA^o different numbers (tAA^o and three). 
And these numbers, Ave should note Avell, make 
up the thought-basis of all numbers, Avith the 
one added, Avhicli is also present as the starting 
point in either series and in both Gifts. 

Such, then, is the beginning, and Ave may 
repeat that the first three numbers — one, tAA^o, 
three — constitute the o-enerative thouoht for all 
other numbers. And the psychological reason 
even if a little abstruse mtiy be here given to the 
kindergardner : these three numbers are a Psy- 
chosis, the primary triple process of the Ego 
numbered — that is, each step of this process is 
held apart by itself, and the acts of such abstrac- 
tion are named in order, one, tAVO, three. Such 



136 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

is the numerical Psychosis, foundation of all 
number begotten by the Ego for the Ego, and 
hence bearing the impress of its threefold move- 
ment, namely, unity (one), separation (two), 
return (three). 

Accordingly, the child sees and makes frac- 
tions in seeing and making that diagonal cut; 
further, he beholds the principle of fractional 
division repeated in the second cut. And now 
we wisli to declare our opinion that the third 
and fourth cuts ought to be made or some- 
how represented in at least one of these one- 
inch Cubes, through bisecting the four right 
angles at the center, whereby the Cube will 
be divided into eight small triangular prisms. 
Thus the fractional series (I/2, V4, ^/s) is 
made complete, and the conjunction with the 
Third Gift is without a break. As it is, the 
last link of connection seems missing, and the 
chain is left hanging down in the air, without 
having joined itself to its source. For the Fifth 
Gift, as we have it, stops the series with I/2 and 
V4, omitting i/s, which leaves one of its most 
important relations to the Third Gift unestab- 
lished, and its symmetry, specially its cubical 
symmetr}^ incomplete (i/s being a numerical 
cube). 

Thus the Fifth Gift Avould show the unity 
between the two complete fractional series : that 
based on three, I/3, Vo, V27, and also that based 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.^THE FIFTH. 137 

on two, 1/2, V4, Vs. In this respect it would be 
a perfect unification of the two Gifts, without a 
frao^ment or fraction missing:. 

But in the sweep of this Gift is found a deeper, 
more comprehensive unity than in the foregoing 
unity of the fractional element taken by itself — 
the unity between both the fractional and the 
multiplicative. This will be manifest in the 
following statement : — 

1. It has the progressive or multiphcative 
series, composed of the multiples of the unit of 
measure (cubic inch). 

2. It has the regressive or fractional series 
composed of divisions of the unit of measure 
(cubic inch). 

3. It has their unity in its movement, for these 
fractions reunite and return to their source, 
which is the unit of measure, and which is thus 
restored out of its division. 

We need hardly remind our reader that here 
again we find the psychical process of the Ego. 
And it all can be played by the child and taken up 
into his mind through play. The whole thing is 
visible in the blocks and their manipulation. 
It can be truly said that the child is now playing 
mathematics into himself — both geometry and 
arithmetic, as well as their union in measure (or 
mensuration) . 

Among the arithmetical forms and processes we 
note the odd and even numbers, the inteoer and 



138 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

the fraction, the multiplication and the division 
of them in many ways, even their self -multiplica- 
tion and self -division, in the forms of cubing and 
squaring, as well as of cube-root and square-root. 
The geometric forms we have already noticed in 
treatino^ of the different anoies, and also trian- 
gular and quadrangular shapes. 

It is not so o'ood a Buildinoj Gift as some 
others, still we must observe that to the cubical 
or cuboidal house it adds a roof with its trian- 
gular gable or pediment. Also the child may 
beo^in to build round, makins^ the suo^s^estion of 
an arch by using the small triangular prisms as 
voussoirs. 



FROEBEVS FLAY GIFTS,-THE FIFTH. 139 



OBSERVATIOXS ON THE FTFTII GIFT. 

1. One of the difficult questions in regard to 
this Gift pertains to its adaptation to the child . 
August Koehler, who had great insight into the 
practical side of the Gifts, and was a very suc- 
cessful trainer of kinder ofardners, says it ouoht 
not to be given before the fifth year, and ought 
not to be withdrawn before the eighth year 
(see his Praxis I. 202). It would have, there- 
fore, to pass out of the kindergarden into the 
primary grade, or connecting school. Koehler's 
thought is that the Fifth Gift should be taught 
through a period of three years. Goldammer 
would extend this period, making it four years, 
two in the kindergarden, and two in the next 
grade. 

2. It Avould be well to have a second size of 
this Gift — a cubic foot has been sugoested. 
There is no doubt that the smaller pieces of this 
Gift in its present size make it difficult for chil- 
dren to handle. If the division into eio^hths be 
added, the difficulty is increased. The claim is 
made that for group work the larger size is bet- 
ter. The child may also behold advantageously 



140 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

the foot — linear, square, cubic — as the foot be- 
comes the standard for all large measurements, 
and the inch drops into the background. Then 
there is something in having the larger child 
advance to the larger blocks, with which he has 
been before familiar in a smaller form. Pos- 
sibly the one size could be used in the kin- 
dergarden, and the other size in the advanced 
grade. 

Already we have had two diJfferent sizes of the 
Cube; this new size will give a third one, which 
is a multiple of the other too ; thus the child has 
a new field of comparison as well as a fresh 
application of the unit of measure. Though the 
material be increased, the time employed upon 
this Gift can remain about the same. 

With the large size the fractional element, 
which is the salient characteristic of the present 
Gift, becomes more striking to the mind of the 
child, more easy to be handled, and hence more 
easy to be played with. That is, the most import- 
ant meaning of the Gift becomes more accessible 
to the child, for whom it was intended. 

3. When we come to the Gifts of Abstract 
Magnitude, we shall find that the Fifth Gift has 
furnished the solid form from which the triangle 
is taken. This triangle is the right isosceles 
tablet. 

4. This Gift, taken as whole, is capable of 
beino^ divided into halves, thirds, fourths, sixths, 



FBOEBEU S PL A Y GIFTS.— THE FIFTH. 141 

and even twelfths. Thus division become visible 
to the child in play. By the same means multi- 
plication can be shown. But it is not the pur- 
pose of this book to 2^0 into the manipulation of 
the present Gift or of other Gifts ; so we may 
pass to the next. 



142 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 



SIXTH GIFT. 

The three-incli Cube is ao^ain taken as the 
starting-point, which fact connects the present 
with the precednig Gift at the beginning, while 
the cubical form unites it with the whole series 
of Building Gifts. The primary division of the 
Cube is into 27 oblong Bricks (parallelopipeds), 
which fact carries the present Gift back to the 
Fourth Gift in a strong bond of connection. 
Yet the number of pieces is the same as in the 
Fifth Gift, and a Brick, though so different in 
form, is equal in size to a one-inch Cube, being 
V27 of the large Cube. So the Brick can also be 
the unit of measure. And the same fractional 
relations exist between the Sixth and the Fourth, 
as we noticed existing between the Fifth and the 
Third (1/3, 1/9, 1/27 and I/2, i/4, i/s). Still the 
unit of measure must remain the cubic inch, for 
it is easily adjustable to all solid shapes on account 
of its equal dimensions, while the Brick, Avith all 
three of its dimensions unequal, would be a very 
intractable unit of measure. So the Cube of the 
Fifth Gift and the Brick of the Sixth Gift are 
the same in contents, but diverse in form. 

The Sixth Gift has also a secondary division 



FEOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SIXTH. 143 

(like the Fifth) but in a very different way. 
Six Bricks are halved transversely, making twelve 
square plinths, and three are halved longitudi- 
nally, making six square columns or pillars. Such 
a division is not diagonal, or of the angle (as in 
the Fifth Gift) but diaplagial, of the side or 
edge. 

The result of the two divisions just described 
will give the following forms for the Sixth Gift : 

18 Bricks undivided . . . . . 18 Bricks. 
6 Bricks halved crosswise . . .12 Plinths. 
3 Bricks halved lengthwise . . () Pillars. 

Thus we have 36 pieces all told. AVe may 
next consider the various differences, which have 
been introduced into this Gift by the divisions 
just described. In the first place, the derived 
forms are totally unlike the Avhole Gift, as we 
also saw in the Fourth. In the second place, the 
derived forms differ from one another in part, 
and in part are like one another, as in the Fifth 
Gift. Here we may employ the same image we 
did there, an image taken from the domestic 
relation. We observe three sets of descendants 
from the ancestral Cube. First, there are the 
immediate children of the parent, the Bricks, 
unlike him both in form and size; secondly, 
then come the grandchildren in two different 
breeds, and both of them unlike their parents or 
their grandparent. The fact is, there seems to 



144 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

be in this Gift a tendency in the descendants to 
shun any kinship with their progenitors, the 
children disown their ancestry, disclaiming to 
look like their fathers. What is the matter? 
Some trouble in the family, or an increase of 
freedom? It may be said, however, that this 
difference between parents and children has been 
growing ever since the Third Gift, in whose 
happy domestic circle everybody was like every- 
body else in looks. 

In the third place, we must consider the di:ffer- 
ences within the form itself — di:fferences of 
dimension. The brick is herein the opposite 
of the Cube, having a different length, breadth, 
and height, not one dimension of it alike. But 
the Plinth and the Pillar have each two dimensions 
alike and one different ; the Phnth has lensfth and 
breadth the same but not height ; the PiUar has 
breadth and height the same, but not length. 
Thus in the Sixth Gift the three sets of descend- 
ants have each in its way a difference in its own 
form; we may call it a rise in individuahty. 
Hence the Sixth Gift shows greater independence 
in its members than the Fifth Gift, or any other 
Building Gift. This fact we may set down as 
progress. For the homogeneous is becoming 
more and more heteroo^eneous in the or onanism of 
these Gifts, which statement indicates the upward 
movement of organic growth. Or, taking another 
formula, the physical instead of the biological, 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SIXTH. 145 

we may say that the process of these Gifts is 
more and more approaching the process of the 
Ego, which is really their creative prototype as 
well as their end. 

If we now seek out and emphasize the dis- 
tinctive thing in the present Gift, we shall find it 
in the secondary division of the Brick, the di- 
vision into Pillar and Plinth. The latter are new 
forms which re-inf orce strongly the architectural 
element in these Building Gifts. Previously we 
had inclosure, the wall, which is a product of the 
Fourth Gift specially with its Bricks ; but now 
we have that which holds up the ceiling or roof 
of the inclosed space, and leaves the room within 
substantially free. For in this Gift a Pillar can 
take the place of a wall, as far as supporting the 
cover overhead is concerned, and wide entrances, 
colonnades, open spaces are possible under roof. 
The architectural suggestion comes out strongly, 
as we may note by the following forms with their 
meaning: — 

1 . The Pillar which supports what is above and 
does not inclose, its idea and purpose being that 
of support. 

2. The Plinth, placed under the Pillar as a 
strong broad foundation resting upon the earth. 

3. The Cross-beam, or architrave, that which 
is supported by the Pillar. It may be the Brick 
laid upon its narrow edge and reposing on two Pil- 
lars, with an open entrance below. Or the Cross- 

10 



146 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP 

beam may be another Pillar laid horizontally 
upon the two perpendicular Pillars and connect- 
ing them. This typical form repeated will pro- 
duce the edifice with its two constructive elements, 
the supporting and the supported. 

Moreover, this architecture will suggest the 
Greek, with its severe simplicity, with its recti- 
lineal and rectangular forms. Yet not quite 
Greek, as the round column is wanting; still 
here is the square column (Pillar), and we may 
secretly feel its struggle for, or its longing after 
rotundity, which must soon come. 

The division lengthwise and crosswise which is 
the central fact of the present Gift is found in 
all structure. Every architectural fagade has 
such a division when carefully analyzed. The 
human shape has such a division in its median 
line and in its two sides, or bilateralness, the 
latter being indicated most completely in the two 
arms extended. The great works of literature 
are architectonic, and are to be studied in their 
structural divisions. Shakespeare's plays are 
built on lines runnino: leno^thwise and crosswise, 
Avhich reveal the grand masses and proportions of 
his work. So the temple, the church, the artistic 
product ; the cross itself is primarily a rude but 
fundamental image of man's own tabernacle, his 
body. 

The student may now see why the Sixth Gift 
is so dominantly architectural with its three 



PROEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.~THE SIXTH. 147 

forms, ill contrast with tlie Fifth Gift, which 
lends itself better to the symnietrical figures of a 
geometric pattern, and hence leans more to orna- 
mental than to constructive work. The Fifth 
Gift is chiefly for decorating the Sixth Gift. 
Out of the one we can make an inclosure, but out 
of the other we can build a house. It is a char- 
acteristic of the Fifth Gift that it has the shape 
of a roof in one of its blocks, and so has a place 
in building. 

o 

We are incUned to suggest a new division 
in this Gift. The pillar may be divided cross- 
wise into two half pillars, and these again divided 
into two smaller Cubes, one-fourth of the size of 
the pillar. Undoubtedly there comes the diffi- 
culty of handling these little pieces on the part 
of the child. Still we have to think that the 
Sixth Gift reaches its true conclusion only in this 
way. 

For thus we behold, after all the division and 
separation in these four Building Gifts, the 
return to the starting point, the Cube. They 
form a cycle of derivation, in whose chain the last 
link reaches around and connects with the first. 
The Cube after quite a line of derived shapes, 
reproduces itself, and therein has its analogy to 
the vegetable process in the seed, which'' also 
separates within itself, and after going through 
many forms of growth, comes back to itself — 
the seed reproducing the seed. Thus the circular 



148 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

movement of the rectilineal Gifts rounds itself 
out to completion, and in a way suggests the 
next series, the curviHneal. 

We shall see later that Froebel in his Eighth 
Gift (which was also a Brick Gift), may have in- 
troduced this division, and so made the return to 
the Cube, the original genetic shape, which re- 
turn is now wanting in the Sixth Gift. Of course, 
nothing of the sort is known. But we can easily 
make the return through the Sixth Gift and thus 
complete psychically this rectilineal series. 

And here we shall offer a suggestion corre- 
sponding to the one in the Fifth Gift — let us 
have two sizes of the Sixth Gift, one small and 
one large. The cubic foot will be best adapted 
for the larsfe size. Then the small Cube will be 
two inches square; that is, it will be just the 
same in form and size as the two-inch Cube of 
the Third Gift, with which the rectilineal series 
started. The kindersrardner will call the atten- 
tion of the child to this fact, taking out the Third 
Gift, and he will at once make the nexus between 
end and beginning. Then she can show him the 
whole hne of derivation running through these 
Building Gifts, whereby he will get his most 
valuable lesson, that of inner genetic connection 
in the great order of things. 

The advantao^es of a laro-e-sized Gift have 
already been touched upon: the value of the 
cubic foot as a measure to which the eye ought 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS— TEE SIXTH. 149 

to be trained ; in social combination for building 
or in the so-called group-work of children the 
larger size is doubtless better ; then the larger 
child feels the inner correspondence when he 
deals with laro^er thino^s. The arofument cited 
from the physiological psychologists who affirm 
the later development of the small muscles and 
hence insist upon the necessity of larger blocks 
than the usual ones, may be here omitted as of 
doubtful application. The chief ground is the 
educative one, which rests upon the psychical 
movement unfolded in the Building Gifts, and 
incorporated in them to the vision of the child, 
who is to play his inner self outwards in playing 
the process which moves through and holds 
together these blocks. 

Thus the Sixth Gift, if the preceding division 
be carried out, will not only complete itself, but 
in the same manner will complete the entire 
rectilineal series. In the final Cube, the Sixth 
Gift comes back to its own beginning, which is 
the beginning of the Third Gift, this being the 
starting-point of the series. The Sixth Gift as 
the last stage, has to bring out this element of 
return both within itself and within the totality of 
Building Gifts, of which it is a member. 

In this way we catch a view of the entire 
sweep of the present series in its inner, psychi- 
cal process. The first stage is the Third Gift, 
which is simple derivation by means of division, 



150 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

which, however, produces no di:fference of form. 
The second stage introduces difference of form 
in a number of ways, which are seen in the 
Fourth and Fifth Gifts, with their quadrangular 
and triangular shapes. Thus difference passes 
from size into form. The third step is the Sixth 
Gift, which, producing the plinth and the pillar 
(as vertical) and the cross-beam (as horizontal) 
returns into its origin in the final division, 
returns into the beginning of the series, which is 
the Cube. 



FROEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— TEE SIXTH. 151 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRECEDING GIFTS. 

1. They can be combined in many suggestive 
ways. One of the most fruitful is that of 
co-operation in building. Several little hands 
can be employed in rearing one structure, which 
may be made of the materials of one Gift or 
more. Thus the social principle is cultivated. 

A higher form of associated play is when the 
children unite and build the tow^n with its public 
buildings — courthouse, church, market-place, 
public square surrounded by edifices. Then the 
private houses are gathered around this center, 
wiiere are the mentioned institutional buildings, 
and among them the schoolhouse. A little 
society of children is thus building the home of 
a society, repeating in small what their fathers 
have done before them and anticipating in play 
what they are to do hereafter themselves. 

2. The child is also to have his practice in free 
buildino^. When he has learned the use of the 
blocks and acquired certain forms of construction, 
he may be at times left free to carry out his own 
plans in his own w^ay. But it is a great educative 
mistake to expect him to build at once. Let 
him handle the blocks and play with them a httle 



152 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

at the start, till he makes their outside acquaint- 
ance. Then must come ordered building which 
has to be prescribed in the beginning, and has to 
be continued till he makes the inside acquaintance 
with his constructive materials. To ask the 
child to use at once these o^eometric forms in 
building, is to ask him to do on the spot what it 
has taken his race thousands of years to accom- 
plish. He will soon grow weary of the blocks, 
because he has in his mind no structural content 
by which to order them; they are a chaos just as 
he is a chaos. But when he has acquired a 
certain constructive mastery of his material, 
when he has, so to speak, learned his trade, then 
he can build almost any kind of a home, and will 
busy himself for hours in making plans and 
carrying them out. 

The truth is, when the blocks are given him 
without any previous constructive training, and 
he is allowed to build with them, that is not free 
building at all, for he has no choice between 
caprice and order. He has to follow his caprice, 
since he has learned no order. He cannot exer- 
cise his inventive genius (as some say), because 
he has no true knowledge of the material with 
which he deals. He cannot realize his native 
bent unless he have some outer mastery of the 
thing which he is going to inform with him- 
seK. Free building can only come after he 
has learned something of the inner nature of his 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SIXTH. 153 

blocks. An architect cannot express himself in 
his art till he knows how to manipulate its forms. 

So there should be free building, but in the 
right place and at the right time. Nay, there 
should be free association in buildins^ among the 
children of the kindergarden, when they reach 
the fitting age and have had the proper expe- 
rience. If left to themselves children show a 
tendency to free association ; boys will associate 
together for the purpose of building a cave in the 
hill, or a dam over the brook. On the whole, the 
larger blocks seem best adapted for such asso- 
ciative plays. 

3. It is sometimes objected that the Building 
Gifts have too much mathematics. Undoubtedly 
they do show form and number, or geometry 
and arithmetic, giving the primary concepts of 
the latter. But this is really their great educa- 
tive value. The first rise of the child out of the 
sensuous world into that of mind is through the 
quantitative process. When he can say of two 
objects that they are of the same size but of a 
different form, or that they are of the same form 
but of a different size, he has begun to compare, 
order, and measure the material universe. When 
he can count one, two, three, he has begun to 
make an abstraction from the whole sensuous 
world, and name the act as ideal or mental. All 
scholastic discipline begins with mathematics, 
which word means (in Greek) primarily things 



154 TEE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

learned as distinct from other things given by 
the senses. 

In this connection we have always to recall 
ancient Pythagoras, probably the father of peda- 
gogy and the first actual schoolmaster in the 
Occident, with his love of mathematics — geome- 
try and arithmetic — and the divine meaning 
which he put into this science. What the old 
Greek did for grown-up children 2500 years ago, 
Froebel is doing for little children now. So far 
indeed do we seem to have progressed. 

It may also be well to note here that the 
thought of Pythagoras is the infantile thought 
of the race in its first attempts to conceive the 
essence of things. Says Aristotle (Met. I. 5): 
The fundamental idea of Pythagoras is "that 
number is the essence of all things, and that the 
universe is organized in its manifold determina- 
tions by a system of numbers and their rela- 
tions." Such is the beginning of thinking, 
which seeks to account for the sensible universe 
by a supersensible principle, here the mathemati- 
cal. The school still holds to this curriculum of 
old Pythagoras, and the school-boy of to-day 
gets his first lessons in abstract thought by 
means of numbers. For arithmetic is not only 
useful in commerce, but its deepest value lies in 
its being the primary discipline in human culture. 

Moreover, one of the ten pairs of opposites 
which Pythagoras (or the Pythagoreans) adopted 



FBOEBEUS FLAY GIFTS. -THE SIXTH. 155 

as embracing all things was just the two geomet- 
ric forms which Froebel has employed in these 
four Gifts, namely the cube and the oblong. It 
is strange how this oldest educator, starting to 
train the infantile race, is re-incarnated in the 
newest educator, starting to train the infant of 
the present time. Truly the race-soul and the 
child-soul have been unfolded and are to be 
unfolded on the same lines. To each form, the 
cube and the oblong, Froebel devoted two Gifts, 
and he intended to devote one more Gift to each 
(the Seventh and the Eighth). So the ancient 
Greek educator and the modern German educator 
join hands across the chasm of centuries, both of 
them trainers of the infantile spirit by similar 
methods. 

While we are dealing with this subject, we may 
expand a little another allusion in the preceding 
remarks, that concerning opposites or contraries. 
Nothing is better knoAvn in Froebel than his law of 
opposites and their reconciKation. The thought 
is old Greek, we may say, infantile Greek. We 
catch the first note of it in Anaximander of 
Miletus (570-520, B. C.), who had pairs of 
physical contraries, as Heat and Cold, Moist and 
Dry, etc. Pythagoras had among his ten pairs, 
physical, mathematical, and ethical opposites, 
culminating in the opposition of Good and Evil. 
Heraclitus emplo^^ed the same thought in his 
philosophy, and it reappears in Plato. In fact, 



156 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Aristotle, the chief voucher for these early Greek 
thinkers, says (Met. III. 2) that '' they nearly 
all agree that the essence and the reality of 
things are made up of opposites," and that the 
chief doctrine which you can extract from them 
is that '* the beginnings of existence are in 
contraries-" 

We hold that it was Froebel's greatness as 
well his power that in his most mature work he 
was still an infant, that he as a man remained a 
child and never "put away childish things,'* 
namely, the playthings of children, which he 
transformed into the first means of human de- 
velopment. Thus he could and did bridge the 
abyss between the race-soul and the child-soul, 
opening the spiritual treasure-house of mankind 
to the little ones, who can now enter there 
through the simplest and most immediate act of 
their nature, through play. 

Still Froebel's thought is, in essence, infantile, 
and is seen to be so through its correspondence 
to the infantile thought of the race when phi- 
losophy began to bud in that old Greek epoch. 
On many sides it has the characteristics of 
infancy, nay, it has to be so in order to perform 
its functions in the world. Whereof a good 
example is found in Froebel's law of opposites, 
which really belongs to the first stage of philo- 
sophic thinking, to the childhood of philosophy. 

4. We can trace certain architectural elements 



FR0EBEU8 PLAY GIFTS.— THE SIXTH. 157 

presented in a kind of structural succession in 
these four Building Gifts. 

The Third Gift shows the primary form of the 
body of the house (without the sloping roof), 
which is cubical or cuboidal. The same material 
will inclose more space in the shape of a square 
(or Cube) than in any other form. This fact 
can easily be shown with the Bricks of the 
Fourth Gift. Then the division of the Cube in 
the Third Gift is a sort of archetype of the divis- 
ion into rooms of the two-story dwelling-house 
of man. So the Third Gift is a minute fore- 
shadowing of man organizing his home, and 
advancinoj from a one-roomed hut to an 
eight-roomed abode. 

The Fourth Gift suggests the inclosure of the 
building — its wall made of oblong stones, bricks, 
or pieces of wood. And the form of the house 
will pass from the square to the oblong or paral- 
lelogram, as having more beauty, or as being a 
more adequate representative of the Ego, since 
this form has difference within itself, the three 
dimensions being different. Still the Cube is the 
more immediate, utilitarian figure, since it holds 
more room in the same quantity of material than 
any other figure. The most perfect structure in 
the world, the Greek temple, presents to the 
vision almost everywhere the parallelogram. 

The Fifth Gift adds triangularity to the build- 
ing principle, and is most prominently seen in 



158 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

the roof with its gable. In the Greek temples 
the triangle is distinctively the pediment, the 
chief place for sculpturesque figures, which indi- 
cate the transition from the architectural or 
geometric forms to the plastic. By its shape the 
triangle suggests a rise, culmination, and end; 
thus the artistic eye of the ancient Greek took it 
as the hintful frame of a dramatic action repre- 
sented in statuary. 

The Sixth Gift adds the post and the beam in 
one shape, or the pillar and the architrave, as 
well as the plinth under the pillar as a foundation. 
This is, accordingly, the architectural Gift above 
all others ; it shows the inclosure in its Bricks and 
the entrance into the inclosure, guarded and 
surrounded by the pillar and beam; the door 
and the window can now be inserted in the wall 
with their own forms. 

Thus the Building Gifts may be made to reveal 
the evolution of the house of man till it rises into 
the temple of his God. 

5. Froebel himself has, in an oft-cited passage, 
pointed out the analogy of the Second (or Origi- 
native) Gift with its Ball, Cube, and Cylinder, to 
the column of Greek architecture with its base 
(Cube), its shaft (Cylinder), and its capital 
(Ball or head). So the Second Gift, too, in its 
way shows its architectural kinship, though its 
three parts, superposed in the right order, have 
also a remarkable resemblance to the human 



FROEBEVS PLAY GIFTS— THE SIXTH. 159 

form. Indeed, the Greek column suggests the 
same resembhmce, being a statuesque burden- 
bearer of the architrave above. The chissic 
bent is pronounced throughout all these Build- 
ing Gifts. 

It should be borne in mind that Froebel at one 
period of his life devoted himself to architecture, 
intending to make it his profession. Already at 
the University of Jena it was one of his courses. 
He went to Frankfort for the purpose of study- 
ing it further, when he was persuaded to give it 
up for the vocation of the teacher by Dr. Gruner. 
This was in 1805. Thus for six years or more 
he had in mind an architectural calling, and he 
carried his interest in building over into his school. 
Moreover Froebel lived in the time of what may 
be called the Greco-German Renascence of the 
present century, whose greatest exponent was the 
poet Goethe. The study of Greek antiquity had a 
new birth in quite every department of ancient art 
and culture. Architecture shared in the awaking, 
and its chief representative was Schinkel, whose 
works were starting in Berlin during Froebel' s 
• stay in that city. Stuart and Revett had gone to 
Athens in the latter part of the preceding cen- 
tury, had drawn and measured the Parthenon 
and the Greek temples. The results of their 
labors began after some years to appear in a 
great revival of the classic style of architecture, 
especially in Germany. 



160 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

In the midst of this revival Froebel lived and 
at one time thought of becoming an architect. 
We may well see in these Gifts a tendency of the 
time, as well as an individual bent, since they 
lend themselves predominantly to classic forms, 
which are mainly rectilineal. It is a curious fact 
that a window which Froebel calls Gothic (repro- 
duced in Seidel's edition of Froebel' s writings, 
II., p. 263) is not Gothic at all, but Greco- 
Eoman, having in it no sign of a curve. 

When Froebel passed through Southern Ger- 
many on his way to and from Switzerland in 
the Thirties, he must have again felt the breath 
of the classic revival, which at that time dom- 
inated the Bavarian capital under the direc- 
tion of the architect Leo Yon Klenze, who 
reproduced there the Propylaea of the Athenian 
Acropolis, and other classic structures. In those 
days a Bavarian prince, Otho, had been called to 
reign over the new Hellenic nation, which had 
also a new birth after hundreds of years of 
enslavement. The Teuton had wooed and mar- 
ried the Greek, symbolized by the poet Goethe 
during this epoch in the Second Part of his 
greatest poem by the marriage of Faust and 
Helen. Froebel, too, participated in the spirit 
of the time, which his genius impelled him to 
introduce into education, yes, into the education 
of the little child playing with building blocks. 
As the two world-educators, Froebel and Pytha- 



J 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS. 161 

goras, the modern German and the ancient 
Greek, seem to be shaking hands across the 
abysm of time, so the two world-poets, Goethe 
and Homer, the first and last of their exalted 
degree, reveal their brotherhood in many a 
kindred touch of myth and song, notably in the 
tale of Helen. Yet how different are these two 
modern men, the educator and the poet, both 
contemporaries, both sprung of the same people, 
both the sons of the same mighty spiritual 
movement of the age ! The one of lofty station, 
conscious, purposeful, the master of all culture, 
intendino^ throuo^h his art to reincarnate his elder 
Greek brother — that was the poet. The other 
of humble life, unconscious, instinctively repro- 
ducing the soul of the race like a child for the 
child — that was the educator. 

FvoebeVs Seventh and Eighth Gifts. These 
are not the present Seventh and Eighth Gifts of 
the kindergarden (tablets and sticks), but Gifts 
which Froebel had thought upon and numbered, 
yet never completed. The Seventh Gift was to 
be a continuation of the Third and Fifth, starting 
from a new division of the Cube into sixty-four 
pieces. The Eighth Gift was to be a continua- 
tion of the Fourth and Sixth Gifts, starting 
from a new division of the Cube into Bricks. 
Thus the two additional Gifts belong to the 
rectilinear series of Concrete Magnitudes ; as far 

11 



162 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

as known, they make no transition into the 
curvilineal. Somehow Froebel's spirit was caught 
in those geometric right lines and could not 
extricate itself. 

We also note how Froebel (at the time of the 
Epistolavy Statement^ from which these facts are 
drawn) conceived his solid Gifts. He indicates 
four series : — 

First series is the Ball, or the First Grift in its 
manifold application. 

Second series is the Ball, Cube, and Cylinder, 
or the Second Gift. 

Third series is made up of the cubical Gifts — 
Third, Fifth, Seventh. 

Fourth series takes the Brick as the starting- 
point of three Gifts — Fourth, Sixth, Eighth. 

The idea of the series (Heihe) will be taken 
up by Froebel and applied to the tablets which 
follow the solid Gifts. 

In this account there seems to hover before 
Froebel's mind, though rather indistinctly, three 
kinds of division which he applies to his Gifts 
generally. They separate, first, into large sec- 
tions (sometimes he calls each of these a play- 
whole, Spielganzes) ; then these sections he 
sub-divides into series; finally each of these 
series is composed of a certain number of play- 
gifts. The play-gift is the unit of the system. 

Such was Froebel's most complete attempt to 
oro^anize the ever-accumulatins^ materials of his 



FBOEBEL'S PLAT GIFTS. 163 

Gifts. The document from which the above is 
taken bears no date in Lange's edition (a grave 
oversight on the part of Lange), but probably 
belongs somewhere in the middle of the Forties. 
(See the document in Lange II. s. 559. Trans- 
lated by Miss Jarvis^ " Education by Develop- 
ment," p. 306.) 

Still Froebel does not unfold these divisions 
into anything like a complete system, nor does he 
give grounds for his distinctions, at least not with 
any degree of fullness. It is manifest, however, 
that he intended a triple set of Gifts for each of 
the forms, the Cube and the Brick. We may 
also suppose that there hovered before his 
mind a threefold movement in each case. 

It must be confessed, however, that the Seventh 
and Eighth Gifts, as above conceived, lie outside 
of the kindergarden. Even the Fifth and the 
Sixth Gifts cannot be finished in the kinder- 
garden, but must be carried over into the primarj^ 
grades, according to the opinion of the best 
kindergardners. 

We can see that the first set of two Gifts 
(Third and Fourth) take up the Cube and the 
Brick in the simple or primary division, and thus 
show an immediate stage ; then comes the second 
set of the same forms (Fifth and Sixth Gifts) 
which introduce a secondary and more complex 
division, calhng forth many new combinations; 
finally is the third set of the same forms (the 



164 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

projected Seventh and Eighth Gifts) which gave 
still more complicated geometrical figures, and 
probably introduced crystallization. 

In the above cited document Froebel gives a 
few hints concerning his Seventh Gift, but dis- 
misses curtly his Eighth Gift. In the latter 
Guillaume has conjectured that there must have 
been a diagonal division of the Brick in order to 
get the right scalene triangle of the tablets. We 
would also like to hazard the suggestion that the 
Eighth Gift ended in a division which produced 
the Cube, and thus brought about a return to the 
beginning of the series. Of course there is no 
positive ground for any such conjecture, and this 
return can also be made from the present Sixth 
Gift, as we have already indicated in treating of 
the same. 

As supplementary to the preceding view of 
Froebel, we may introduce some statements from 
another document of his, the letter to Emma 
Bothmann, dated May 25th, 1852 {Lange, II. 
509; Jarvis^ II. 283), written not long before 
his death. Here he unfolds his use of the four- 
teen solids or ci^ystal forms, deducing them from 
the Cube of the Second Gift. But these he will 
employ not so much in the kindergarden as in the 
connecting class, which is the bridge over the 
grand chasm between the kindergarden and the 
primary grades of the school proper — which is 
still a problem. 



FB0EBEU8 PLAY GIFTS. 165 

Now it becomes manifest in comparison that 
the Seventh Gift of the previous (undated) letter 
has become the fourteen Solids of the present 
(dated) letter. In each case Froebel goes back 
to the Cube and develops his forms out of it, so 
that these (polyhedrons of various kinds, octo- 
hedrons, dodecahedrons) seem to spring from the 
Cube as from their creative germ. It is true that 
the manner of derivation appears somewhat dif- 
ferent in each case, though the procedure of the 
Seventh Gift is not distinctly told in any detail. 

We may conclude from a comparison of these 
two letters of Froebel, which are several years 
apart, that he abandoned the Seventh Gift as a 
part of the kindergarden course, and transferred 
it Avith some changes doubtless, into the con- 
necting class, where it appears in his last 
word upon the subject. Kohler thinks that 
these fourteen solids have still a future in the 
Public School; this may be so, but a discus- 
sion of the subject lies outside the horizon of the 
present book. It is important, however, for the 
student to keep in mind the difference in time as 
well as in development of Froebel' s thought 
between the two above mentioned documents, as 
Guillaume has somewhat confused them in the 
only presentation (see his statement in Barnard's 
volume on Kindergarden and Child Culture) 
which has been hitherto accessible to the Eno^lish- 
speaking world. 



166 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

In this connection we may cite a passage in 
which Froebel speaks of his work, taken from 
the Baroness Marenholtz von Billow's Erinner- 
ungen an F. Froebel, s. 149 : '' Their simplicity 
alone makes the Building Gifts adapted to the 
instruction of children. I myself once intended to 
continue the regular (^gesetzUch) division of them 
still further, but I had to recognize this as a mis- 
take. Further division makes the regular pro- 
cedure impossible" (see the passage in Mrs. 
Mann's translation of the Reminiscences of 
Froebel, p. 230). 

This open confession of a mistake which Froe- 
bel here makes, refers, in our opinion, to the 
Seventh and Eighth Gifts. Spoken in connec- 
tion with the Building Gifts, it indicates the 
change in Froebel' s mind, which we have above 
indicated. The date suggests the same fact, as 
the reported conversation took place in 1851, the 
year before Froebel' s death. 

We shall continue the citation of the above 
passage, as it contains some of Froebel' s latest 
ideas about the Building Gifts : ' ' For further 
diversification of material we can use too-ether the 
four Building Gifts. TJte straight line must be 
still retained iyi the division. The older pupils 
can diversify the material according to their 
needs by their own invention, though this ceases 
to be a methodical means of instruction." 

Thus Froebel had the conception of free build- 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS. 167 

ing, which is claimed for these times of om's. 
Yet it was to come after instruction or prescribed 
building, not before — \vhich is the right way. 
But how tenaciously he clings to his straight line ! 

Still more from the same passage: "It is, 
however, permissible to offer to the more 
advanced pupil building-blocks which represent 
the different styles of architecture of peoples and 
of ages, but that does not belong in my kinder- 
garden, which can only use Avhat is elementary." 
To our mind this last expression is but another 
indication how completely even simple curvilineal 
forms lay outside of Froebel's horizon. The 
Ball and Cylinder were quite enough for him in 
the matter of curves. 

Still we must note with interest that he refused 
to crystallographize his kindergarden through the 
Seventh and Eighth Gifts, and of his own accord 
left them out of his system, acknowledging his 
mistake. 

Again the reflection is forced upon us that 
Froebel's Gifts were not complete at the start, 
but were a great development extending through 
many years, especially of the later portion of his 
life and we must further see that they were not 
left in a state of completion by the author him- 
self, who was unfolding them in various direc- 
tions at the time of his death. Still the main 
lines of his Gifts are laid down in all distinctness, 
and are to be wrous^ht out to their true results 



168 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

by those who wish to develop his system in accord 
with its spirit. 

In fact Froebel's entire life was a genetic 
development from its beginning, and this inner 
nature of himself he projected into his kinder- 
garden. His biography is to be conceived as 
genetic and thus it becomes the best commentary 
on his works. It is a great mistake to swallow 
everj^thing that Froebel has written without ask- 
ing where the given statement belongs in his 
development. 

And now we proceed to outline briefly an 
account of that portion of Froebel's Gifts which 
he never completed and which he apparently was 
unable to complete through force of nature, but 
which the kinder oarden organism, unfoldino^ and 
working in his spirit, has to complete in the right 
movement of its growth. 

2. Cwvilineal Seines. This corresponds to the 
rectilineal series previously considered and is the 
second head under the Gifts of Concrete Magni- 
tude. It is the separative stage in contrast with 
the straight line which is the immediate going 
forward of the point into the line, whereas 
the curve shows the line changing direction at 
every point. Thus the curvilineal introduces 
separation into the rectilineal at every possible 
turn, yet this separative act is continuous in a 
line. The result is curvature. 



FBOEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS. 169 

Still further, the central point was one \Yith 
the line in the rectilineal, but in the curvilineal it 
becomes separated and begins to take its own 
independent position. The curve projects its 
central point, from which in reality it is 
determined. 

Thus the central point is being separated and 
becoming explicit in the curve, while in the 
straight line it was in immediate, unseparated 
unity with the line. Here we have a foreshad- 
owino^ of two elements of Abstract Mao^nitude — 
Point and Line — while the rectilineal has only 
one of these elements — the Line. In such 
fashion we see the twofold nature of the present 
sphere. 

This curve in its innermost nature is a return 
out of the Cube (the derived) toward the Sphere 
(the original). This going from the straight to 
the round is a deepening of the rectilineal toward 
its source, a kind of a search for its genetic 
fountain-head. But in such a movement the 
rectilineal will pass through an infinitude of 
shapes on its way, all sorts of many-sided figures 
with division moving more and more toward the 
curve. The active right line, as a thought, goes 
on and on, in a state of seeking yet never attain- 
ing ; it reaches out toward infinity, yet cannot get 
back to itseK, and so be complete or self- 
returning. 

But when the rectilineal begins to break loose 



no THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

from itself and turn at every point, and also to 
require an inner determining point, we see a 
double separation, without and within, by which 
it makes the transition to the curvilineal. 

Language recalls and perpetuates the spiritual 
analogy between these two kinds of lines, which 
are specially applicable to all sorts of conduct 
and action. We may say that the right line 
represents justice and the unswerving law ; the 
right line is right {^rectum and recht^. The right 
line means straightforwardness in English, recti- 
tudo in Latin, Gerechtigheit in German. There 
can be no doubt that the rectihneal cultivates as 
well as expresses these elements of character in 
the human being. Hence it has its place in edu- 
cation, and specially in the education of the 
child, who being at the start the possibihty of all 
lines, must be straightened out, or put into a 
straio'ht hne in the beo;innino' of his career. 

But these very utterances about the rectilineal 
as educative indicate its limitation, and there 
rises the inner protest, and the demand for the 
opposite. The curvilineal has yielding, concilia- 
tion, forgiveness ; it has mercy, in contrast with 
the unbending justice of the rectilineal. The 
curve bends, relents, turns back, repents; it is 
placable. Achilles in his wrath was rectilineal 
and in one point right ; in his reconciliation he 
was curvilineal, and in all points right. To be 
sure, the bendinsf or curved element in man's 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS. 171 

nature has its limitations also, sometimes he 
must not yield. Thus he must have both, the 
rectihneal and the curvilineal, in harmony. 

Human speech has thus seized upon these two 
kinds of hues to express conduct, especially 
ethical conduct. And as external objects, they 
still remain educative. In the Greek world 
stoical morality Avas rectilineal, epicurean curvi- 
lineal; both in the end were carried to excess. 
The Ethics of Kant are more rectilineal, often 
too much so, the Ethics of Bentham more curvi- 
lineal, often too nuich so. It may be said that 
Northern Europe, the Teutonic peoples, have in 
general a tendency toward the rectilineal in man- 
ners, art, literature, morals, and perchance relig- 
ion. On the other hand Southern Europe of to- 
day, the Romanic peoples, have a decided leaning 
toward the curvihneal, which shows itself in their 
outer behavior as well as in their spiritual produc- 
tions. Froebel himself was distinguished for his 
directness ( Gradheit, straightness ) , and his spirit 
was more rectilineal than curvilineal. This in- 
nate bent was cultivated by his study of 
crystallograplw, which shows nature in her 
rectilineal mood, shooting into right lines, and 
also by his study of architecture, which in his 
time was mainly that of the Greco-Grerman 
renascence, and largely rectilineal. Of course 
his mathematical studies, surveying, geometry, 
etc., helped along in the same direction. Thus 



172 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

we may see why his Gifts are so dominantly 
rectilineal. 

Accordingly we hold that these two kinds of 
lines, furnishing as they do the staple of human 
speech in regard to matters right and wrong, 
and having their analogy not only to the moral 
but also to the intellectual nature of man, are 
deeply educative; nay they have helped to 
educate the human race, and must still help to 
educate the child, who has, in general, to travel 
the same road of discipline that his species has 
traveled. He gets the very basis of all moral 
distinctions in speech from the line, which dis- 
tinctions are re-created by the child in play. 

And now we have to grapple with the astonish- 
ing fact that Froebel has almost wholly omitted 
from his Gifts the curvilineal, and put all his 
stress upon the rectilineal. To such an omission 
there can be at last but one response : the gap 
must be filled. The kindergarden world must 
work toward the completion of the kindergarden 
organism, else it will stop growing, and that 
means death. The main reasons why there 
should be a curvilineal series of Gifts in corre- 
spondence with the rectilineal series, may be here 
touched upon. 

(«.) It is necessary for completeness of Deri- 
vation. The Sphere and the Cylinder, though 
genetic in themselves and belonging to the origi- 
native (Second) Gift, have no representatives 



FB OEBEL'S PL A Y GIFTS. 1 73 

among the Building Gifts. Here lies an offense 
against the very important maxim of Froebel 
himself, that all the material is to be used in con- 
struction and not left lying around in a loose way. 
As in a single Gift, so in the totality of Gifts, 
no fragments should be left unutilized. More- 
over, if one piece be barren, say the Cylinder, 
there is a denial of the very principle of genetic 
development. The child himself will feel the 
gap, and show a vague longing for completeness; 
sometimes he will express it in a naive word. 

(b.) It is necessary for symmetry in the total 
system of Gifts. When we come to the Surfaces 
and Lines in Abstract Magnitude, which must be 
derived from forms of Concrete Magnitude, we 
shall find curvilineal shapes in the tablets and in 
the rings; whence did they originate? We may 
refer them back to the Cylinder, but the inter- 
vening stage has dropped out. This violates the 
symmetry of the Gifts. 

(c.) It is necessary on artistic grounds, as we 
shall see later. Art must have the curvilineal; 
architecture, the most rectilineal of all the Fine 
Arts, cannot do without the arch in any complete 
development of itseK, and the arch is curvilineal. 

(d.) It is necessary to ethical proportion in 
the human soul, as we have already set forth. 
There can be an excess of the rectilineal in the 
conduct of life, though it certainly forms an 
indispensable part thereof. 



174 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

(e.) It is necessary for scientific completeness, 
since geometry demands curves as well as right 
lines, and certainly nature has both. Geometry, 
in fact, starts with the rectilineal, and moves into 
the curvilineal by division of itself till it quite 
reaches the Point. That movement Ave may 
follow in the unfolding of these Gifts. 

(y.) But the main thing, the thing above all 
other things is, that the curvilineal element is 
necessary for the educative completeness of 
the training of the child. This conclusion fol- 
lows from the statements just made. Genetically 
incomplete, artistically incomplete, morally in- 
complete, scientifically incomplete — are any 
more reasons needed for this new curvilineal 
Gift (or Gifts)? 

Several questions now rise with emphasis : 
How shall this rectilineal Gift be constructed? 
Of what pieces shall it be composed? What 
forms can be made of it when its pieces are va- 
riously combined? Let it be said here that the 
author of this book does not pretend to be able 
to answer adequately these questions. The cur- 
vilineal Gift ( or series ) remains to be constructed 
by some skillful kindergardner who is able to 
think with the hand like Froebel himself. Such 
ability lies outside of the sphere of the present 
writer. 

Still we may give a suggestion or two, which, 
however, will have to be confirmed by practice. 



FROE BEL'S PLAY GIFTS. 175 

The main addition must be found in the arch, 
one of the basic principles of architecture. Here 
we may note three shapes which form a process 
together, all of them derived from the Sphere or 
more directly from the Cylinder of the Second 
Gift. 

(1.) The most immediate derivation from the 
Cylinder by division is when it is halved and 
quartered lengthwise, with a cross section in the 
middle. Thus the three planes are passed 
through the C}dinder at right angles to one 
another as through the Sphere and the Cube. If 
the division into eighths be made (or modeled 
in clay), these small slanting pieces will suggest 
the wedge-shaped stones of the arch, technically 
called voussoirs. 

Such a division of the solid Cyhnder shows 
the arc, the half and quarter circle on the out- 
side, or the convex principle of the curve. Next 
in order, then, we are to see the concave princi- 
ple unfold out of the Cylinder. But this de- 
mands a different division of the Cylinder, the 
concentric, or the Cylinder within the Cylinder, 
which new shape (or shapes) will be divided by 
the three intersecting planes. 

(2.) The result of this division which should 
be performed thrice concentrically, making three 
hollow Cylinders, one within the other, will be 
the semi-circular arch of three sizes, and of two 
different lengths, or more, according to the cross 



176 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

cuts. Also there will be the quarter arches, or 
even the eighths. 

Thus we have the concave and the convex 
principles of the curvilineal form, as it is seen 
outside and inside. The hollowness or concavity 
of the arch constitutes its great importance; 
beneath it flow rivers, while over it go roads, 
heavy vehicles, trains, etc. The arch is perhaps 
the most useful of all building devices ; it will 
span a large space, and bear up under the heavi- 
est burden if well made. The child should build 
his arch in the kinder o^ar den and learn somethino^ 
of its character, which is indeed suggestive. 

(3.) There are many ways of uniting the pre- 
ceding forms. The convex and the concave forms 
alongside of each other in succession produce the 
undulatory series of curves, a line which is 
rhythmic in its suggestion. Many decorative 
figures can be brought to light — rosettes, bor- 
ders, trefoils, etc. Then these curvilineal forms, 
concave and convex, can be united with the 
rectilineal in many a combination suggesting 
architecture, of which we shall speak later. 

So we would interweave into these Gifts as 
well as into the training of the child a curvilineal 
element to counterbalance the one-sided rectilin- 
eal element of the preceding four Gifts (Third to 
Sixth inclusive). Already the Cylinder of the 
Second Gift is such a union of the round and the 
straight, and the Greek column (soon to be men- 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS. 177 

tinned) shows the same union in a number of 
ways. 

At this point we must render homage to the 
work of Hermann Goldammer, who, of all the 
successors of Froebel, seems to have felt most 
keenly the above-mentioned defect in the Gifts, 
and to have made the most earnest beginning 
toward its correction. Goldammer, in his Kinder- 
garden Manual { Gifts ^ p. HI) has given us the 
result of his labor in what he calls " Gift 5 B," 
which he adds as a kind of appendage to the 
Third and Fifth Gifts. He also declares that he 
has tried to add a similar appendage to the Fourth 
and Sixth Gifts, but that, after much effort, he 
has not succeeded to his own satisfaction. 

We think that Goldannner has made a very 
solid contribution to the Gifts in his work, but 
it should be much extended. He has only one 
kind of arch, whereas there should be at least 
three different sizes, for the sake of variety and 
contrast. Thus the child can have a large arch 
and a small arch in his structures, one for his 
door and one for his window, and still another 
one, whereby he can produce the effect of magni- 
tude by means of the contrasting sizes. As 
already stated, these various kinds of arches can 
be derived from the concentric Cylinder. The 
arch, being the most important structural element 
of the curvilineal, or, for that matter, of the 
whole building series, deserves to be quite fully 

12 



178 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP 

developed for the child, even though the time of 
the straight-lined Gifts be somewhat shortened. 

We think, too, that it is a mistake on Gold- 
ammer's part to make the curvilineal forms a 
mere appendage to the rectilineal Gifts . We are 
inclined to see in this the ground of his failure to 
proceed in his task. At any rate, the curvilineal 
principle should be co-equal with the rectilineal, 
and still further, should be united with the same 
in the total process of the Gifts of Concrete 
Magnitude, of which it is the second stage. 
Thus the curved form becomes an integral part 
of the entire movement, and not a tail tacked on 
the outside of something else. 

Still we feel we must render due honor to 
Goldammer, our predecessor in this suggested 
improvement, who actually constructed something 
for its furthering — a merit to which Ave can lay 
no claim. 

There are a few scattered hints in Froebel's 
writings, showing that he felt the need of this 
curvilineal element in his Gifts; still, when he 
proposed adding two more, the Seventh and the 
Eighth, he again gave way to his rectilineal bent, 
and fell back once more upon the Cube and the 
Brick. 

3. Unification of the two series. The curvilineal 
element cannot stay alone; if it does, it runs the 
danger of getting crooked. The curve, too, 
must be put under the law, the right, and the 



FBOE BEL'S PLAY GIFTS. 179 

right-lined; capricious crookedness is not the 
beautiful artistically, nor the good morally. The 
rhythmic undulations of the sea move up and 
down on a right line, eternally coming and going ; 
order and symmetry suggest a rectilineal power 
controlling caprice within and chaos without; 
we are to straighten devious conduct both in 
word and in act. The curve with its versatility, 
being able to turn at every point, has the tempt- 
ation of becoming lawless, or purely capricious, 
whirling any whither. Of itself it calls for 
the rule, literally and metaphorically, vrhich 
is straight-lined, but which, taken by itself, is apt 
to get rigid and remorseless, not to say, fixed and 
crystallized. 

So we trace in the present stage a few of the 
analogies which are real and also educative, since 
the human mind has embodied them in its think- 
ing and in its speaking. Just for this reason 
they are to be taken up by the child, are to be 
re-thought and re-spoken by him, in order to reach 
down to the fundamental concepts of his race at 
their very source. In these Gifts they are played 
by the child, alwa^^s attended by the budding 
word, which is now born anew in the child-soul, 
as it was primordially in the race-soul. 

The child naturally builds; in fact every 
organism must build, every animal has this 
instinct — the beaver, bee, bird; in a sense the 
tree may be said to build. This building instinct 



180 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

is deeply connected with the generative impulse; 
every animate object constructs in some fashion a 
home for itself and its young, the abode of the 
family. The house is originally constructed not 
so much for the individual as for the species. 
The child in building is giving utterance to his 
domestic and social instinct, rather than to a 
selfish one, hence it should be cultivated from the 
very start. He will reproduce his own home, 
probably, first of all; at any rate he will build 
himself into an environins^ structure of some 
sort. 

Here enters especially the work of the kinder- 
gardner, taking advantage of this building instinct 
of the child. Instead of his own petty, narrow 
environment, he can be made to build in outline 
the whole architectural movement of mankind. 
The instrumentahties already elaborated in the 
two series, rectilineal and curvilineal, enable him 
to reproduce the larger and leading features of 
the chief edifices of the world. Thus he recre- 
ates in himself the architectonic soul of the ages, 
and makes it his own ; what man has constructed 
outwardly, he will reconstruct inwardly, for it all 
lies simmering, bubbling, struggling within him. 

Of course this inner reconstruction of great 
architecture is awakened in him throus^h his outer 
reproducing of it with his little building blocks. 

A brief survey of this architectural movement 
of time, which can be re-created in the kinder- 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS. 181 

garden for unfolding the constructive spirit of 
the child, may be here given. 

(1.) We shall begin with a notice of Greek 
architecture, which is mainly rectilineal, its 
ground-form being that of the parallelogram, as 
already stated, which determines the most of the 
outlines of the Greek temple. The whole en- 
tablature (excluding the pediment) is a horizontal 
right line, and is the supported ; the colonnade has 
the vertical right line, and represents the support- 
ing; the two lines meet at many points, forming 
rectangular figures, up and down, on end (be- 
tween columns), on the side (the front of the 
temple), flat on the back (the floor or the stylo- 
bat). Even the ceiling has quadrangular deco- 
rations (cassettes). The triangle, still right- 
lined, appears in the pediment. The whole 
temple is a parallelopipedon crowned by a 
triangular prism (obtuse-angled isosceles). 

It is at once apparent how Froebel's building 
blocks show the fundamental forms of Greek 
architecture, which is so strongly rectilineal and 
rectangular. Out of them can be built a sug- 
gestive miniature of the Parthenon, the most 
beautiful structure in the world. It is a great 
mistake to say that they have no artistic element 
in them, as some objectors have affirmed. 

Still Greek architecture could not wholly dis- 
pense with the curvilinear element, which is 
nobly represented in the column. This is really 



182 TEE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

a harmonious unity of the straight and the round ; 
it is a decided vertical line on the one hand, in 
stronof contrast with the horizontal hue of the 
architrave (or cross-beam) which it supports. 
Still the rotundity of the column is what draws 
and fascinates the eye. It is a significant thought 
that the supporting principle should be round, 
while the supported is right-lined and right- 
angled — the one erect, the other prostrate. 

The Greek architect, however, was not satis- 
fied with the simple, monotonous roundness of 
his column. So he fluted it, cutting its surface 
into straight perpendicular lines, thus emphasiz- 
ing its verticalism. But he also added what may 
be called the concave straight line, which is the 
fluting proper. In this way he gave to his col- 
umn three kinds of vertical lines, all carrying the 
eye upwards — a simple Hue or edge, a concave 
Hne, and the total columnar line, which is in 
effect convex. 

Thus the artistic Greek added the variety of 
thought, yea of the Psychosis itself to his column, 
thereby involving and interesting the Ego of the 
beholder. Of course such details cannot be 
given in the kindergarden, but the incipient crea- 
tive principle of them is there, and the kinder- 
gardner should know whither her constructive 
work is leading the child, namely to the grand 
architectural treasures of the world. 

The Greek column shows already a turn toward 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS. 1^3 

the curvilineal ; this tendency is seen unfolding 
more and more in the development of the so- 
called orders — Doric, Ionic, Corinthian — the 
last of which breaks out into curved f ohage in 
its capital. The column with its silent voice of 
stone at last calls for the arch, which appears 
with Rome. 

(2.) We may conceive of the arch as arising 
out of the Greek column and the architrave ; two 
columns bend together and unite Avith the archi- 
trave which becomes the keystone. The vertical 
and the horizontal, giving up their rigidity and 
turning at every point, are transformed into the 
circular ; or the rectilineal dividing within itself, 
changes direction and goes over into the curvi- 
lineal. Thus the arch is its own column and its 
own architrave; it unites what is separated in 
Greek architecture, yet is itself a curve, that is, 
it separates from itself at every point, and so we 
may consider it in this sense as belonging to the 
separative stage. 

The arch, though not invented by Rome, was 
adopted by it as its fundamental constructive 
form. It is, indeed, a type of Rome, and was 
so regarded by the Romans themselves, who 
represented their own spirit in the Triumphal 
Arch more adequately and originally than in any 
work of art. The arch, closely wedged together, 
can bear the burden of a world upon its back. 
Not so the architrave of a Greek temple, which 



184 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

will break under too great a weight, even under 
its own weight, unless duly supported beneath. 
The arch over canopies space indefinitely, and 
protects what is under it — another suggestion 
of Eome's spirit in the world's history. But 
the Greek temple cannot be pushed beyond 
a certain size; the Parthenon is about the 
limit. Hadrian's temple of Zeus at Athens 
exceeds the limit, it was colossal but ugly, show- 
inof what Greek art with its moderation became 
in Eoman hands. 

We have already intimated that the Eomans 
were not the first people to employ the arch, but 
they were the first to realize fully its possibilities. 
There is no doubt that the Assyrians and the 
Egyptians had used the arch before even the 
founding^ of Kome. In the ruins of the ancient 
Assyrian palace at Khorsabad, we find a very 
complete application of the semi-circular arch, 
ffoino- back to the reio^n of Kino^ Saro^on in the 
eighth century, B.C. The Egyptians used the 
arch for the vaulting of drains and of tombs at 
least 1000 B. C. The Etruscans, often supposed 
to be of Oriental descent, knew the arch, and it 
was doubtless they who built the Cloaca Maxima 
at Rome, an arched sewer which is still perfect 
and in use, and whose round mouth can be looked 
into by the curious tourist, where it opens into 
the Tiber. 

But the arch, when it rises into the realm of 



FROEBEVS PLAY GIFTS. 185 

art and becomes truly architectural, seems to 
demand a setting of right lines; it shows too 
much of the naked utility to be beautiful in 
itself. The Roman Triumphal Arch, already 
alluded to, had to be placed in the framework 
of Greek column and cross-beam, the whole 
taking the shape of a parallelogram in outline. 

(3.) Thus the union of the rectilineal and the 
curvilineal begins to take place at Rome in the 
days of her glory. She seized upon Greek 
beauty to adorn Roman strength, and so we often 
see that the Greek column and entablature at 
Rome were purely decorative, and not structural. 
Thereby, however, Greek art became an external 
matter, an outside ornament put on by the con- 
queror of the world for self-glorification. Very 
common in Roman architecture is the conjunction 
of the arch and wall with the Greek column and 
entablature ; it is the arch and the wall that are 
doing the work of supporting, while the column 
(usually the Corinthian in full dress) stands by 
and looks on, a kind of servant in livery. 

But this external conjunction of the curvi- 
lineal and rectilineal of Roman and Greek struc- 
tural forms, is to become internal, intergrown in 
an organic unity of the two elements. This is 
the work of Christianity, which is to unite the 
Greco-Roman world by an inner bond, which 
will manifest itself not only in creed and doctrine, 
but also in buildings, especially in the church, 



186 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

the home of worship and faith. Christian archi- 
tecture will join the column and the arch in a 
new marriage, which will assume many shapes. 
Already the Basilica gives indications which are 
developed in the Romanesque and the Gothic. 
Finally the Renascence will return to Greece and 
Rome and re-embody classic architectural forms, 
yet with the experience of medieval Christendom. 

We have given this brief survey of the archi- 
tectural movement of the European race in order 
to bring out the interplay between the rectilineal 
and the curvilineal, and still further, to indicate 
that the child can produce that movement in 
child-like outline by means of his play -gifts, if 
these be made complete by the addition of the 
round forms. The arch and the rectilineal par- 
allelogram ( composed of two columns and archi- 
trave) are the two main elements in the develop- 
ment of architecture ; both can certainly be given 
to the child, who will combine them into many 
structural forms and ornaments, which have 
their counterparts in the genetic history of 
building. 

Though there have been repeated attempts to 
develop more fully the architectural forms of 
Froebel's Building Gifts, none of them have been 
apparently taken up into the kindergarden or- 
ganism. In Froebel's time such attempts were 
made, though he seems not to have adopted them. 
( See translation from the ' ' Reminiscences " on a 



FEOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS. 187 

preceding page. Dr. Georgeus' building blocks, 
by means of which '' architectural forms of the 
Gothic and Italian style" can be constructed, 
are only known to us through the allusions in 
a note to Hanschmann's FroeheVs Leben, s. 
397.) 

Here, then, we bring to a conclusion the Gifts 
of Concrete Magnitude, in which we have deriva- 
tion by external division, whose parts have 
remained solid, with Plane, Edge, Corner (Sur- 
face, Line, Point) present in material connection, 
unseparated. But now these are to be separated 
from the outside of the solid Gifts, and consid- 
ered as they are in themselves, or, more deeply, 
they are to bo extracted from the inside of the 
solid Sphere and are to be held asunder and are 
to be regarded in their own right. Such a deri- 
vation is now internal, made by the Ego for the 
Ego, getting rid, first of one dimension of mat- 
ter, then of two, and finally of all. This process 
is what we are next to study. 

B. Gifts of Abstract Magnitude. These are 
the Surface, Line, and Point, and are derived 
from the Gifts of Concrete Magnitude by abstrac- 
tion, by separation from the solid with its three 
dimensions. We are now to go through a series 
of magnitudes which have successively two 
dimensions, one, and finally none at all. 

In the preceding Gifts ah-eady the child has 



188 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

seen, handled and spoken of side, edge, and cor- 
ner, or possibly of Surface, Line, and Point. 
They are real, sensuous, material in the Cube and 
other rectilineal ani curvilineal figures ; but in 
the present stage of the Gifts they are abstract, 
non-material, ideal. They are to be grasped by 
mind as they are in themselves, and not as con- 
nected with the solid. Thus we are made con- 
scious of them as the pure elements of form, 
being separated from the material object in which 
they were, and given a name in their own right. 
Thereby they become tools of the mind, with 
which it re-shapes and re-constructs the world 
of matter. 

It is evident, however, that the little child is 
not equal to this power of abstraction, which in 
the educative process properly belongs to the 
youth who is beginning the study of Geometry. 
Still the child is not wholly to lose such a train- 
ing in the present age ; if he cannot yet think 
apart from the sensuous object, then the sensuous 
object is to be brought to him laden with its 
thought. The Surface, Line, and Point must be 
materialized for him, in order that he may begin 
his mastery of the external world of Nature. 

With this purpose in mind Froebel comes to 
him, having unfolded these Gifts of Abstract 
Magnitude, which may be said to be a re-embod- 
iment or re-incarnation of the pure geometrical 
elements Avhich underlie all material forms. Such 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS. 189 

is the fundamental purpose of the present series 
of Gifts. 

The science of Geometry, therefore, has gone 
in advance of these Gifts, which, however, are to 
bring it, in its basic principles, to the child in the 
child's own way. The old Greek philosophers cul- 
tivated this science specially ; they did not begin it, 
but certainly gave it a great development. They 
quite completed the abstraction of geometrical 
concepts from concrete matter, and thus ideally 
mastered the same. The Geometry of Euclid has 
been the text-book of the ages since its writing, 
and it still remains a standard work. From 
Pythagoras down it may be said that all the great 
teachers of Hellas regarded this abstraction from 
the sensuous world as the primary discipline for 
the soul both intellectually and morally. 

Geometry is a continuous evolution unfolding 
along with the race. From indications of the 
monuments, the Egyptians proved the so-called 
Pythagorean proposition by means of square 
blocks or tablets — a method which the kinder- 
gardner to-day uses or can use with her children. 
It may be interesting to note, in regard to this 
proposition, that the two kinds of proof are the 
sensuous and the abstract, the latter being purely 
geometric, and yet derived from the former. 
The kinder gar den in the person of the child, goes 
back to the race's beoinnins:, and re-embodies 
the abstraction in its primordial concrete shape. 



190 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

(This Pythagorean proposition is the well-known 
one : The square of the hypothenuse equals the 
sum of the squares of the other two sides.) 

Here, then, we can observe the process which 
is the characteristic and lif e-o^ivinp^ movement of 
the Gifts of Abstract Magnitude: first is the 
material world as taken up by the senses in all 
its f ulhless and immediacy ; second is the separa- 
tion or the abstraction of these fundamental 
geometric forms, the Surface, the Line, the 
Point ; third is the return of these forms to the 
sense-world, in which tliey are re-bodied for the 
child. Such is the threefold act of mind (the 
Psychosis) which lies at the basis of these Gifts 
of Abstract Magnitude, and gives to them their 
fundamental distinction, organizing them in ac- 
cord with the movement of the child's Ego itself. 

It will be worth while to note the same process 
in other fields of man's spiritual activity. Let 
us watch it in Ethics. First is the concrete act, 
let us say, of the just man; second is the abstrac- 
tion of the essence of the act, and then the 
giving it a name, justice, which is no longer 
individual, but universal; third is the re-embodi- 
ment of this abstract concept in the conduct of 
men, which is the return to the first stage. But 
what is gained by this procedure? That which 
belonged to the one, now belongs or may belong 
to all; not one man alone is to be just, but all 
men are to participate in justice, which thus 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS. 191 

becomes a virtue and is impartable, teachable. 
So it is with the other virtues, which are abstrac- 
tions from real life in the first place; the brave, 
the temperate, the wise, the good man calls forth 
courage, temperance, wisdom, goodness, and, 
moreover, starts the science of Ethics, whose 
function is to impart these virtues to all, so that 
every human being can re-incarnate them in his 
own life. 

It was, therefore, the grandest epoch in the 
moral history of man, when he began to separate 
virtue from its immediate, instinctive unity in 
conduct and to look at it abstractly, as it is in it- 
self. The grandest epoch, we say, for that which 
hitherto had been the virtuous property of one 
hero, or of one good man, began to be the prop- 
erty of all, universal, just through this might of 
abstraction. Specially the time of the old Greek 
Philosophers was such an epoch, the culmination 
of which was reached in Socrates, and he trans- 
mitted the work to the thinkers who came after 
him, and who organized ethical science substan- 
tially as it exists to-day. 

Of interest to us in the present connection is 
the fact that these same Greek thinkers at the 
same time were developing the science of Geome- 
try, which is an abstraction from the sense- world 
primarily in order to get possession of the same. 
In like manner the science of Ethics is an abstrac- 
tion from the immediate sensuous deed in order 



192 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

to find out the true nature thereof and then to 
control the same. Both sciences have, therefore, 
a common character and often have had promo- 
ters in common. Pythagoras, also a moralist, is 
said to have sacrificed a hecatomb in his joy and 
thanksgiving to the Gods when he discovered the 
geometric proposition which goes still by his 
name. Plato's love of Geometry is celebrated in 
his works, and he is said to have made it a kind 
of examination test for entrance to his Academy. 
It indeed tallies with his love of the Ethical and 
of the Ideal generally, which insisted so strongly 
upon the subordination of the sensuous and 
material elements in man and nature. 

And here it ouo^ht to be noticed that the re- 
embodiment of the Ethical in the concrete form 
of life is likewise a part of the work of the 
kindergarden. The story, the fairy-tale, the 
fable is a kind of re-incarnation of some good, 
or of some virtue, which the child cannot take in 
its abstract form. The great end of the story, 
indeed of all education, is the moral one, and un- 
less the story has a moral content, it is not 
educative. To be sure, we are not to moralize to 
children, or at least very little; to moralize is to 
present in abstract form that which the story 
ouo^ht to o^ive in concrete. To introduce morali- 
zing into the story is, therefore, a kind of 
perversion, which the child himself often resents. 
But we must not infer from this, as some have 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS. 193 

done, that the story is to have no moral content. 
It ought to have always, still this moral content 
is to be completely incarnated for the child, 
though the kindergardner herself should know 
the abstract meaning. Indeed it is through such 
knowledge that slie can rightly choose her stories, 
rejecting those which are not educative or imper- 
fectly so, and selecting those which she not only 
feels but sees to be genuinely ethical, and also in 
a form which goes home to the child. 

So we bring to light the harmony between the 
ethical and the geometrical in the kindergarden 
of to-day, which harmony, however, was strongly 
brought out long ago by the ancient Greek sages. 
Note again that the Surface, Line, and Point do 
not exist in nature, but are abstractions made by 
the mind from the concrete object, and hence an 
ideal, pure product of the brain. Now the 
science of these ideal forms of Matter or of 
Space is Geometry, which is, therefore, a great 
trainer of the spirit in the work of freeing itself 
from sensuous dependence on the material world, 
creating its own pure forms, and hence so praised 
by Plato as a discipline, both philosophical and 
ethical. 

But the sciences of Ethics and Geometry in 
their abstract shape correspond to the needs of 
the more mature or more developed mind. We 
must repeat, that for the child they must be 
re-embodied, which work is specially Froebel's. 

13 



194 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

And a mighty work it is, one of the greatest in 
all education. It was Froebel who not only said 
that the child must not lose his childhood, but 
who created the instrumentalities so that he 
should not lose it, but should have his share in 
these two grand disciplines (as well as others) of 
his race. The Gifts of which we are treating 
are just these instrumentalities in one direction. 
The subject is so rich and deeply significant 
that we may be permitted to employ one more " 
illustration, this time taken from theology. The 
immediate embodiment of Christian life was in 
that of Christ — his deeds, words, conduct in 
o^eneral. Such was the con€rete incarnation of 
all the Christian virtues and doctrines ; then began 
the abstraction of them, together with their 
designation in creed and dogma. St. Paul began 
already to theologize the Christ-life through his 
Greek culture, and the process kept going on for 
more than a thousand years, culminating in the 
Church's greatest theologian, Thomas Aquinas. 
And this process has not yet stopped by any 
means, cannot stop, and, we think, ought not to 
stop. Still, the grand object of creed, dogma, 
confession of faith, and of the vast ecclesiastical 
organism from top to bottom is to re-incarnate 
that Christ-life in every Christian, nay, in every 
human being, if possible. The people cannot 
rest in abstract doctrine, they must have it re- 
embodied and brought home to their very senses. 



FBOEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS. 195 

hence Christian Art Painting, Sculpture, 

Music. Re-embodied also in word, hence amons: 
other things the wonderful Christian Mythus. 
Both theological and mythical was the spirit of 
medieval Christendom, which had a grrand new 
incarnation in a poet and his works, none other 
than Dante Alighieri, who was himself both — a 
theologian and more deeply still, a genuine myth- 
maker. 

The student may now see that Froebel's Gifts 
of Abstract Magnitude are not an isolated thing, 
not some whimsical notion of their inventor, but 
are connected with the great educative movement 
of mankind. They have their intimate kinship 
with some of the deepest spiritual facts in the 
unfolding of the race. An important element in 
all education they are, showing both the power 
and the meaning of abstraction, whereby that 
which was before sensuous, particular, special, 
becomes ideal, universal, for all. And now, in 
the fullness of time, the little child is to be 
broufi^ht to share in this traininof. 

In the very term abstraction lurks the thought 
of separation, and thus it allies itself in general 
mth the second or separative stage of the 
Ego, to which we have assigned already the Gifts 
of Abstract Magnitude. Those elements — Sur- 
face, Line, Point — which previously have been 
more or less implicit, have now become com- 
pletely explicit, separated and regarded as they 



196 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

are in themselves. They had a potential exist- 
ence at the very beginning in the Ball, but they 
are to be brought out of their hiding-place and 
are to be made actual to the senses of the child. 

Still further, these Gifts of Abstract Magni- 
tude, though they be the second stage of the 
Ego in the movement of what we have called the 
Derived Gifts, bear in themselves the total pro- 
cess of the Ego in its three stages. Here the 
student must seize and apply that most impor- 
tant psychologic fact which lies in all true organ- 
izing of anything : that which is the single stage 
of the Psychosis in one relation, shows the total 
triple movement of the Psychosis in another 
relation. For the Ego is to grasp one phase of 
itself, but just in the act of grasping a part of 
itself, it must be its whole self, and thus reveal 
its total movement. 

The Gifts of Abstract Magnitude are now to 
be seen going through the three stages of their 
process, which may be stated in advance as 
follows: — 

I. Simple separation — or the stage of imme- 
diate abstraction from the solids of the Gifts of 
Abstract Magnitude. These abstract elements 
will appear as simply separated, each by itself. 

1. The Surface. 

2. The Line. 

3. The Point. 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS. 197 

II. The separative movement — the separation 
is carried not only to the Point, but into the 
Point itself, which thus becomes self -separating, 
and thereby begins a movement out of itself, a 
projection of itself, which reveals its generative 
character. 

1. The Point as self -separating. 

2. From Point to Line. 

3. From Line to Surface. 

III. The return to the Surface producing the 
solid — the movement out of Abstract to Con- 
crete Magnitude ; the Surface generates the solid 
from which it was once separated, and so we 
come back to the Cube and its derivations. 

Herein it is manifest that the cycle of the 
Gifts of Abstract Magnitude has completed itself, 
having passed through those stages which we 
have designated above and which correspond to 
the Psychosis. Thus it seems to be sprung of 
the Ego, and is for the Ego — for the Ego of the 
child, calling it forth through its innermost 
nature, Avhich also has implicit within itself just 
this psychical movement. Such is the presup- 
position in all education : the Ego receiving and 
unfolding must be in a deep correspondence with 
the thing received and unfolded. 

It may be here remarked that the transition 
from solid to surface has its significant place in 
the Fine Arts. Sculpture keeps the solid in 



198 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

its length, breadth, and thickness; while Paint- 
ing with Drawing passes to the surface. Archi- 
tecture in one sense is a surface built in the form 
of a solid, which is, therefore, hollow. More 
will be said on this head under the Occupations, 
in Modelino' and Drawino^. 

In general, we shall observe that the Gifts of 
Abstract Magnitude — Surface, Line, and Point — 
begin to approach closely to the Occupations, 
whose principle (that of reproduction) they often 
manifest. Still we are in the realm of external 
combination in reproducing, for instance, a tri- 
angle by the laying of sticks, and so this whole 
division properly belongs to the Gifts. 

I. Simple or External Separation. — First, 
then, we shall consider these Abstract Magni- 
tudes in a state of simple separation, just as they 
are taken from their respective solids, each being 
considered by itself. Of course, in the Gifts 
now presented, they are to be re-embodied, not 
retained in their geometric abstraction. 

In an implicit way they have been embodied 
previously. We may regard the Surface embod- 
ied as a small brick or even cube; the Line 
materialized may be a small cylinder or column ; 
the Point is a little round ball. Such sugges- 
tions we have had hitherto ; but the great fact 
now is the re-embodiment of these abstract 
elements. 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS. 199 

The numbering of the Gifts of Abstract ^lag- 
nitude has been and still is unsettled. Froebel 
did not number them, and his successors have 
varied from one another. Still no great confu- 
sion has resulted, chiefly because the divisions of 
the subject in themselves are so definite — Sur- 
face, Line, Point. It would be well, however, 
to have a fixed numbering, if possible. No in- 
dividual of course can determine this, the great 
kindergarden organism in some corporate capac- 
ity ought to have the leading word in such a 
matter. 



200 THE FJSYCHOLOGY OF 



THE SURFACE. 

This is the first, most immediate abstraction 
from the concrete object, two of whose dimen- 
sions (length and breadth) it still retains. That 
is, the solid loses one dimension and becomes 
surface, which is through the Ego and for the 
Ego — ideal. 

As a Gift it is usually numbered the Seventh 
in the regular kindergarden series, though it is 
not Froebel's Seventh Gift, as we have already 
seen. Its embodied forms are known under the 
name of tablets — light thin objects of varied 
contour, rectilineal, curvilineal, and also spherical 
in some of the concentric shapes ; and they may 
be of different sizes. It is the Gift of the Tab- 
lets, which are the different surfaces, seen first in 
the Gifts of Concrete Magnitude, but now ideally 
separated and re-materiahzed. We shall, there- 
fore, apply the term tablet even to a spherical 
surface, though usage generally applies it to a 
flat surface, of straight or round outline. 

The present Gift, accordingly, represents the 
first stage of Abstract Magnitude — the abstrac- 
tion of surface from the solid. These forms, we 
repeat, do not exist in nature, but are separated 



FROEBEUS PLAY GIFTS,— THE SURFACE. 201 

from the concrete objects of nature by the mind, 
whose concepts they are ; hence they are ideal. 

Yet they are the means by which the mind, 
and hence the man, gets hold of nature, controls 
it and uses it for his own purposes. The knowl- 
edge of surface is a part of the science of Geom- 
etry, which is now to be brought down to the 
little child by a re-embodiment of the abstraction 
in its own right; that is, we are to have an object 
which represents surface alone. Thus we behold 
the movement which lies at the basis of all these 
Gifts of Abstract Magnitude: first, the imme- 
diate thing of nature as taken up by the senses ; 
secondly, the separation and the seizing of the 
concept of Abstract Magnitude, here specially of 
the surface; thirdly, the fresh embodiment or 
materialization of this abstraction, which thus 
takes on, so to speak, its own body. 

The surface lies nearer to the solid than the 
point or the line, having two out of three di- 
mensions of the solid. Hence it comes first in 
the order of the senses, though not in the strictly 
logical order, which, through separation, takes at 
once a leap to the opposite, the point. Still we 
shall have to evolve the point first, then we can 
employ it; so we start with the surface. 

The present Gift, as we have it, always causes 
trouble to the student. It has great difficulties ; 
in fact, it shows an inner dissonance, as at present 
taught and manipulated, which make it a kind of 



202 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

terror to the kindergardner. It seems to have 
both too much or too little, easily derived in 
part, and in part difficult to derive ; what shall 
be done with it? Then the naming and num- 
bering of it have caused new confusion ; on the 
whole, it is the most chaotic, disordered Gift in 
the whole kindergarden series. Can a fresh 
step be made toward the ordering of it? 

Let us first take a survey of its material. This 
is usually placed before us in five or seven por- 
tions each of which has its own separate box. 

1. The quadrangular or the square tablet, 
derived directly from the Cube. Thus the child 
has the square inch embodied, the unit of meas- 
ure for all surfaces. 

2. First triangular tablet, or the right-angled 
isosceles triangle embodied. It is produced di- 
rectly from the preceding square by a diagonal 
line, or taken from the end-side of the triangular 
prism of the Fifth Gift. Note that triangularity 
in surface now enters. 

3. The equilateral triangle is usually intro- 
duced next, being called the simplest and most 
typical of all triangles, as it has all its sides of 
equal length and is also equi-angular. But just 
here comes the grand breach in the present Gift : 
this triangle is not directly derivable from any 
preceding solid form, and so is unlike the square 
or the right-angled triangle just given. More- 
over it breaks the genetic thread which runs 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SURFACE. 203 

through all of Froebel's Gifts and holds them 
together in organic unity. 

4. The right-angled scalene triangle, which is 
easily derived from the equilateral triangle by a 
right line bi-secting one of the angles. Or it 
can be derived from an oblons^ bv a diaofonal 
line. 

5. The obtuse-angled isosceles triangle which 
can be constructed from joining two of the pre- 
ceding triangles (right-angled scalene) by their 
short sides. Or it can be derived from an 
oblong by the second diagonal line. 

Such are the five i-ectilinear divisions of the 
Seventh Gift, as taught in the earlier manuals. 
The order sometimes varied somewhat from the 
preceding. 

But the curvilinear element made itself felt by 
its absence, and so we have had more recently 
introduced some round tablets, or surfaces with 
a circular edge. Two (or three) divisions of 
these forms. 

6. The circular disc, derived from a section of 
the sphere or cylinder. 

7. This disc has been halved, giving a form 
bounded by a straight and a round edge. 

8. Quarters of the circular disc are now to 
be met with in some places. 

Thus the use of the curvilineal element has 
shown itself more strongly in the Gifts of Ab- 
stract Magnitude than in those of Concrete Mao-- 



204 TEE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

nitude, though the need would seem to be quite 
the same in both. 

9. Concentric surfaces. Here we may add, by 
way of completeness, that a new series has been 
proposed, but hardly yet adopted into the kinder- 
garden organism. This is the concentric idea as 
applied to surfaces, both square, round, and 
cyclindrical, derived of course from cube, sphere, 
and cylinder. 

Such is the material o:ffered by the Seventh 
Gift, over which the thinking student puzzles 
herself a good deal, bringing up many problems. 
For this material is so abounding and yet so 
deficient; with an outward order in spots, yet 
with a deep inward disorder and scission ; certain 
surfaces being rejected and others being selected, 
apparently by pure caprice. The fundamental 
question is, How can I make this Gift genetic, in 
correspondence with the total movement of the 
Gifts and Occupations? That is, genetic by sep- 
aration (fissiparism) , as has been the chief method 
hitherto, always of course to be followed by the 
return. 

Other surfaces possible. Four rectilineal sur- 
faces are chosen from the Gifts of Concrete Mag- 
nitude — the square, the right isosceles triangle, the 
right scalene, and the obtuse isosceles (we may 
leave out the equilateral for the present). Why 
just these four, when many others are possible? 
What is the ground of selection? Why take the 



FBOEBEUS PLAT GIFTS.— THE SURFACE. 205 

square, for instance, and leave out the oblong 
surface? We may indeed put two or more 
squares together and produce the oblong. That 
is not quite the same, still let it pass. We not 
only halve the Cube, but we quarter it in the 
Fifth Gift; why not do the same with the 
square and thus make the abstract and the con- 
crete Gifts correspond in the child's mind? 

Then we halve the oblong in order to derive the 
right scalene triangle, hence it is that we need 
the conception of a total oblong, not of two 
squares put together. Still further, why not 
draw the second diagonal through the oblong 
(brick), and produce the obtuse isosceles tri- 
angle? To be sure, another triangle by such 
division makes its appearance which has not been 
adopted, namely, the acute isosceles. But what 
reason can be given for taking the obtuse isos- 
celes and rejecting the acute isosceles, its direct 
counterpart and brother? And, in the future, 
ought we to put both in or throw both out? 
Such questions will rise in the most conservative 
mind thinking closely upon this Gift. 

When we come to the curvilineal series we 
find that the surfaces have not only been halved 
but quartered. Why should not the same rule 
apply to the rectilineal surfaces, the square and 
the oblong? If proportion be one of the great 
ends of these Gifts, why should it be violated in 
these cases? 



206 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

These questions are all crying for one thing : a 
principle of selection. What law shall we follow 
in selecting and in rejecting the surfaces of the 
present Gift? It looks as if caprice had been 
largely dominant hitherto, or at least some sup- 
posed practical necessity. Still practice and 
theory ought not to continue in opposition to 
each other. 

The right scalene triangle. This has one angle, 
the right angle, permanent, while the other two 
angles are variable, hence there may be many 
varieties of this triangle. The most natural 
derivation of it in the present Gift is from the 
oblong halved. But this is supposed not to give 
the best angles, which are usually said to be the 
angle of 90, 60 and 30 degrees. So its derivation 
has been adjusted to produce these angles. One 
way is to take as hypothenuse, not the diagonal of 
the oblong, but the longer of the two other sides, 
and construct upon it a new right scalene 
triangle, which is supposed to show the desired 
angles. 

But there is a great objection to this deriva- 
tion : it produces a break or dislocation in the 
genetic continuity which mars its simplicity and 
directness, and quite places the latter (the ge- 
netic unfolding) beyond the reach of the child. 
Moreover it covertly introduces a wholly new 
principle of determining the triangle, that 
through the angle. Now the time for this, we 



FROEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SURFACE. 207 

hold, has not yet come, but is to be deferred till 
stick-laying. 

Anything like an explicit measuring or naming 
of angles, excepting possibly the right angle, 
should be put off till we have movable sides, 
which is the case with the sticks. If yo\x intro- 
duce the obtuse and the acute ans^les into the 
surface or solid, the child will think that these 
angles are as fixed as the right angle, whereas 
they are variable. Any angle greater than a 
right angle is obtuse, any angle less than a right 
angle is acute; thus there are hundreds, yes 
millions of each of these angles, while there is 
but one right angle in the universe. This total 
difference of character must not be lost on the 
child: the one angle is invariable in any position, 
the others have variability. The one is, there- 
fore, the keystone of the arch, the others are 
the multitudinous stones on each side of the 
arch. Only in stick-laying, in which the line is 
totally abstracted from solid or surface, and is 
free to move, can the child obtain the true notion 
of variability, since the angle can determine the 
sides according to its size. 

The right scalene triangle as surface should 
not, therefore, be used to instruct the child in 
the three kinds of angles. The right may indeed 
be designated, for it is the stable unit of all 
angularity and of all comparison of angles ; but 
let even the names acute and obtuse remain 



208 THE PSYCHOLOar OF 

implicit, till they can be illustrated by the mova- 
ble sticks which belong to the Eighth Gift. 
This need not be long deferred, if we recollect 
that it is a principle in all these Gifts that they 
are not only successive, but also interrelated. 
So we can have the sticks very soon after having 
the first lesson in the tablets. 

Equilateral triangle. As already stated, in this 
triansrle lies the center of the difficulties of the 
present Gift. It is the simplest of all the triangu- 
lar forms, just the typical one, yet it is the most 
refractory one in its derivation. It will not 
somehow pull in the harness, but breaks out of 
the direct genetic sequence of the Gifts. The 
kindergardner loves it for its many good qualities, 
yet she cannot put it in order ; she will not think 
of turning it out of school, yet it confuses all 
her arrangements ; she is like the man who has 
hold of the galvanic battery, she can't let go, 
yet the thing makes her dance. 

A few words upon the various derivations of 
this triangle, which as a surface should be directly 
taken from some preceding solid known to the 
child. But no such solid presents itself, at least 
not directly. 

First of all, it has been derived geometrically 
by inscribing a hexagonal figure in a circle. 
Thus we can get six equilateral triangles, one of 
which is the shape sought for. But this method, 
which is suggested by Goldammer (in his book 



FBOEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— THE SUBFACE. 209 

on the Gifts, p. 118, Eng. trans.) is out of the 
reach of the child, depending as it does upon the 
proof of a proposition in Geometry. 

Secondly, the equilateral triangle has been 
derived from the right scalene. Two of these 
put together by their middle sides may produce 
the form desired, but does not always. This 
derivation (yet it is really not derivation but 
combination of forms already derived), is, there- 
fore, uncertain. If the two right scalene tri- 
angles are given the necessary angles, namely, 
30, 60 and 90 degrees, this method will work, 
otherwise not. The difficulty, then, is thrown 
back into the rio-ht scalene trians^le. 

Thirdly, a cube can have its corners cut off till 
it becomes an octohedron. Then each of its faces 
can be an equilateral triangle. Here the objec- 
tion is that we introduce an entirely new geo- 
metric form, going back even of the cube, which 
has been the source of all derivation hitherto 
after the sphere. 

Finally, it is declared that this octohedron was 
genetically introduced into Froebel's Seventh Gift 
(not the present Seventh Gift) which was left 
unfinished. Hence the argument has been urged 
that this Gift ought to be finished in order to 
supply the missing link which is felt in the 
tablets of the equilateral triangle. Particularly 
has this view been enforced by M. Guilliaume, 
who argues strongly for the necessity of Froe- 



210 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

bel's intermediate gifts (Seventh and Eighth) in 
order to derive in full these triangular tablets 
(see 'BamsiTd^ s irmde7^ga7^den and Child Culture, 
p. 361). 

Our solution, as already intimated, is differ- 
ent. Guilliaume's proposition leaves untouched 
vv^hat is for us the real source of the difficulty, 
namely the problem of the variable angles, which 
call loudly for the free, movable line of the next 
Gift (stick-laying). Whenever we come ex- 
plicitly to the obtuse and the acute angle, we 
must pass out of the tablets and take the child 
alone: . For now the determinant is the anoxic and 
a variable one at that, and it must have a fluid 
line, as it were, under its control. 

The angles of the equilateral triangle are 
acute; they as well as other acute angles in 
triangular forms ought to be laid in movable 
lines by the child. At least this should be done 
in the beginning, even if we give later to the 
child the tablet of the equilateral triangle, that 
he may use it for various form-producing com- 
binations. 

A word here upon the preceding derivations. 
When two right scalene triangles of a certain 
kind (as above described) are put together by 
their middle sides, an equilateral triangle is pro- 
duced. But such a result is not properly deriva- 
tion, as there is no genetic separation from a 
solid in the process, but it is simply combina- 



PROEBEUS PLAY GIFTS— THE SURFACE. 211 

tion of two surfaces already derived from the 
solid corresponding to them. Such a figure, 
therefore, belongs properly to Morphology, as 
hundreds of other forms produced by combina- 
tion of triangles in the present Gift. Thus an 
equilateral triangle produced by combination and 
not by derivation has no right among the origi- 
nal tablets, no more than any other form pro- 
duced by uniting several tablets. In like manner, 
the obtuse isosceles has been formed by joinino- 
two right scalene triangles by their short sides. 
This again is not true derivation, but simple 
combination of forms already derived, and 
hence belongs to Morphology. 

Historical. The troubles of the Seventh Gift 
reach back to Froebel himself. The classic pas- 
sage of his works where he treats of it is brief, 
yet fairly distinct as far jis it goes (see the pas- 
sage in Lange's Pddagogik des Kindergartens, p. 
570; translation by Miss Jar^ds, Education hy 
Development, p. 326). 

Froebel does not number this Gift, in fact he 
does not consider it a Gift at all, but a wholly 
new division {neue Abtheilung) which he further 
divides into five series, and these series are sub- 
divided into Gifts. For instance, the second 
series of this grand division is composed of right 
isosceles triangles, and this series is made up of 
five Gifts, which contain altogether 104 tablets. 
The third series (equilateral triangles) of the 



212 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

same division has also five Gifts, and the number 
of tablets reaches the sum total of 149 pieces. 

The kindergarden organism has had to reject 
a large part of this enormous material, and still 
there is probably too much of it. It is clear that 
Froebel was still in the stage of experimentation 
with this Gift, he had not yet organized it. The 
passage referred to was written toward the end of 
his life. 

In reference to derivation, Froebel merely 
mentions it, adding that *' it cannot be here car- 
ried out." This sounds a good deal like shun- 
ning the main point. One other expression he 
uses : "To the thinking man it (the derivation) 
lies tolerably near at hand. ' ' Really, however, the 
reader wishes to know how to bring it home to 
the child. With this short statement, hardly 
more than a page, Froebel passes to something 
else. 

The next view we shall note is that of August 
Kohler (^Praxis des Kindergartens, Dritte Au- 
flage, II. s. I-II), who designates this as the 
Seventh Gift, and its five subdivisions as the five 
species i^Arten) of tablets. This is an advance 
upon Froebel' s nomenclature, and Kohler 's 
method of treating the present Gift remains in 
use to-day. But he has no curvilineal tablets 
and no concentric surfaces, the suggestion of 
which also goes back to Froebel. Nor does 
Kohler very seriously concern himself about 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE SURFACE. 213 

derivation, being apparently more of an imme- 
diately practical than of a theoretical bent. 

The last of the earlier important authors whom 
we shall cite in this connection is Goldammer, 
who names each kind of tablets a Gift and so has 
a series of five Gifts (from the Seventh to the 
Eleventh inclusive). Herein he has not been 
generally followed. But Goldammer pays more 
attention to derivation than does Kohler. On 
this side he is more profoundly sympathetic with 
Froebel, who always insists upon the inner con- 
nection and the genetic sequence of his Gifts. 

Goldammer derives the right scalene triangle 
from the oblong brick of the Fourth Gift by 
halving it diagonally (p. 139), just as the right 
isoscles was derived from the square. This, in 
our view, is the correct procedure and best 
adapted to the child. Herein, however, Kohler 
is different: he changes the hypothenuse and 
constructs a new right scalene triangle in which 
the longer side, being just double the side of the 
square or of the equilateral triangle, is taken as 
the hypothenuse. (^Praxis, H, s. 2.) Goldam- 
mer's procedure, we cannot help thinking, is 
more genetic and more truly educative, though 
Kohler' s procedure has largely prevailed, chiefly 
on supposed aesthetic grounds which demand 
that the child see in his triangle ' * those three 
beautiful angles " of 90, 60, and 30 degrees. 

We may add here that Goldammer 's ordering 



214 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

of the five kinds of tablets seems to us better 
than that of Kohler (who herein follows 
Froebel), inasmuch as he (Goldammer) places 
the right scalene next to the isosceles, making it 
the third of the series and thus suggesting the 
inner connection as well as the derivation. Still, 
in this respect also Kohler has been followed 
more generally than Goldammer. 

In one matter, however, Kohler has not been 
followed by those coming after him. From the 
tablets he passes at once in his exposition to 
paper-folding, to an Occupation, which he calls 
the Eighth Gift. In general, Kohler makes no 
fundamental distinction between Gifts and Occu- 
pations, naming and numbering them all as Gifts. 
Herein Goldammer 's work is far more discrimin- 
ating and has, for the most part, furnished the 
standard. 

Most of the recent kindergarden manuals, as 

far as we have examined them, call the Gift of 

the Tablets the Seventh Gift, and it is probable 

that this numbering will continue, though it has 

no special reason for existence. We think that 

the Seventh Gift should be the curvilineal, and 

the Eighth Gift the tablets. 
♦ 
It should be noted that one of the discords 

produced by the above mentioned change in the 

hypothenuse of the right scalene triangle is that 

the tablet is thrown out of ao^reement with the 

net of square inches which are marked off upon 



FBOEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— THE SUBFACE. 215 

the kinclergarden play-tables. The equilateral 
triangle shows the same want of corresiDondence 
to the square inch, the unit of measure, so that 
no proportion is manifest between the two figures. 
In fact, this unit of measure, so carefully un- 
folded and preserved in the Building Gifts, is 
quite set aside by the above mentioned change, 
which, as far as we have been able to find out, is 
to be attributed to Kohler. The result is that 
not only is the thread of genetic connection 
broken, but also that the mind of the child 
becomes confused about a basic principle of the 
quantitative Gifts, namely, measure. 

Summary of Contents. It is evident that the 
Seventh Gift as the abstraction of surface ought 
to stand in the closest relation to the preceding 
Gifts of Concrete Mao^nitude. The two belong 
together and should correspond, first, by direct 
derivation, second, by completeness, third, by 
symmetry. If a directly derivable surface is left 
out, there is an offense against completeness ; if a 
surface not directly derivable is taken up, there 
is a sin against symmetry as well as against 
derivation. We shall discuss these terms more 
fully later on. 

We shall now give a short tabular statement 
whose purpose is to order the contents of the 
Seventh Gift, showing them as directly derivable, 
as complete, and as symmetrical. 

I. Rectilineal surfaces — those bounded by 



216 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

straight lines, in forms both quadrangular and 
triangular. Quadrangles are two, the square 
and the oblong, each of which is divided by a 
first diagonal and then by a second diagonal, pro- 
ducing all the right-lined triangular forms except 
the equilateral. So the rectilineal surfaces, both 
quadrangular and triangular, are to be directly 
derived by separation from the cube and brick, 
solids belonging to the Gifts of Concrete Magni- 
tude. 

II. Curvilinear surfaces — those bounded 
wholly or in part by curved lines, the circular and 
the semi-circular, derivable from the ball or 
cylinder. Symmetry demands the round disc 
along with two sections of it, the half and the 
quarter (and possibly the eighth). 

III. Concentric surfaces — derived not from a 
side or section of the Cube or Ball, but from the 
total solid, embracing its whole periphery, or all 
its sides. The idea here is that of totality — a 
totality of surface is presented, say in three 
diminishing forms verging toward the center or 
point. As already stated, these concentric sur- 
faces have not yet been adopted into the kinder- 
garden organism, though they were suggested by 
Froebel (see Lange II. 583; trans, by Miss 
Jarvis, II. p. 342. Also in Barnard, p. 360). 

Psychologically we hold that this concentric 
principle both in the Cube and the Ball is neces- 
sary to complete the doctrine of surfaces in the 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.-THE SUEFACE. 217 

kindergarden. The rectilinear and curvilinear sur- 
faces, as above given, are partials, while these con- 
centric surfaces are wholes. Thus they are true 
integrating elements which unite the two preced- 
ing forms and point back suggestively to the 
generating center of all Gifts. 

It may be stated here that Miss Gliddon, of 
Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y., has with great 
labor and ingenuity, constructed, or rather 
re-constructed these concentric surfaces in such 
a way that they ought to be, and, we hope, soon 
will be, a part of the necessary material in every 
kindergarden. 

Such is a brief ordered survey of the contents 
of this Seventh Gift, actual and possible. Of 
course the objection is that the material is simply 
overwhelming, not to be compassed by child or 
kindergardner. Yet something has to be done, 
and the question again rises. What selection can 
be made out of this mass, getting its essence and 
omitting things less important? 

In making such a selection we should keep in 
mind the relation between the Gifts of Abstract 
Magnitude and of Concrete Magnitude (including 
the Second Gift), how the former are derived 
from the latter, and how they should correspond. 
The surface is the first and most direct abstrac- 
tion from the solid, and hence the correspond- 
ence of the two is the most intimate and imme- 
diate. If the derivation of the surface from the 



218 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

solids of the preceding Gifts be broken into, dis- 
located, or interfered with in any way, there is at 
once felt a jar, a break in the genetic spirit of the 
whole series of the Gifts, which is first perceived 
by the kindergardner, but is sooner or later com- 
municated to the child. This Seventh Gift has 
been hitherto the seat of a number of such 
discords. 

Discussion of Derivation in this Gift. — In 
order that the source of these discords among 
the tablets may be understood better, and possi- 
bly avoided, we shall lay before the student the 
following thoughts upon derivation in the present 
connection. 

(1.) The derivation should be direct. This 
characteristic will make it clear and natural to 
the child, who has already found the correspond- 
ing^ solids in the Gifts of Concrete Mao^nitude. 
The derivation proceeds by the principle of divis- 
ion, the surface is taken directly from the cube 
and the oblong: and their sohd derivatives in the 
Building Gifts, and also from the round bodies 
of the Second Gift. 

Now when we introduce a surface not directly 
derivable from the solids which have gone before, 
as the equilateral triangle, we snap the genetic 
link, and the result is the whole chain of genesis 
in the Gifts, and in the Occupations too, is 
broken. Yov the whole chain is just as strong as 
its weakest link, which when snapped leaves the 



FBOEBEL'S PLAT GIFTS.— THE SUBFACE. 219 

two parts of the chain dangling asunder. Hence 
the feeling of dissonance which always acompa- 
nies, according to the testimony of a large num- 
ber of the most experienced kindergardners, the 
equilateral triangle on the score of its derivation. 

Again: when the hypothenuse of the right- 
angled scalene trianojle is shifted from the diag:- 
onal to the side of the oblong for the sake of the 
angles, we have broken the genetic connection for 
some outside purpose, and there is a violation of 
the principle of direct inner derivation. 

Again: when two right scalene triangles are 
put together by their short sides in order to form 
the obtuse isosceles triangle, the procedure is not 
one of derivation from the solid of the Building 
Gifts, but a combination of two pieces into a ncAV 
form, and so belongs strictly to Morphology. 
That is, such a form is not primary and has no 
more business to be an independent figure than 
any other of the hundreds of combined figures of 
this Gift. 

(2.) The derivation should be complete. That 
is, all the derivable surfaces should be given, at 
least all the primary and essential ones. The 
corresponding solids of the Gifts of Concrete 
Magnitude must be fully represented in those of 
Abstract Magnitude, else there is a gap which 
the child himself will feel and sometimes actually 
point out. Indeed, if the genetic purport of the 
Gifts be adequately brought out in his manipula- 



220 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

tion of them, he will be almost certain to discover 
the vacancy. 

Now, when we take the cube and abstract its 
surface for the square tablet and leave the oblong 
without any representative in Abstract Magnitude, 
there is the shrillest kind of dissonance, and the 
very idea of derivation is stabbed to the heart. 
In the name of all the prophets, why should 
o^enesis act on the cube and not on the oblono^? 
The inconsistency deepens when we derive a 
triangular tablet (the right scalene) from the 
oblong, and not its own quadrangular surface, 
though the latter has to be conceived (that is, 
generated) before we can get the former. 

Such is the original sin against completeness 
in these tablets, but there are lesser sins of the 
same sort. The taking^ of the obtuse isoscles 
and the leaving out of the acute isoscles when 
both are derived by the same act of diagonal 
division of the oblong; the quartering of the 
round tablet and not of the square tablet ; the 
omission of all concentric surfaces, spherical, cy- 
lindrical, rectilineal, are offenses against complete- 
ness of derivation, as well as against symmetry. 

What is sought for is a totality of derivation, 
giving the entire process of the surface in 
Abstract Magnitude, as derived from the Gifts 
of Concrete Magnitude. 

3. The derivation should be sjnnmetrical. That 
is, the derived forms shoukl be scencominfi: forth 



FB0EBEU8 PLAY GIFTS.— THE SUBFACE. 221 

genetically in a certain order and proportion, ful- 
filling their inner law. All incompleteness is 
unsymmetrical, but not all completeness is sym- 
metrical. Completeness demands that all the 
derived forms be given, symmetry demands that 
all and no 7nore be given, and that they be given 
in their genetic order. Excess or superfluity is a 
violation of symmetry, though not necessarily 
of completeness. The derivation must be, there- 
fore, not only direct, not only complete, but also 
ordered, proportionate, neither too much nor too 
little, not omitting anything inside nor adding 
anything outside. 

For instance, when the right-scalene triangle, 
derived directly from the oblono- by the first 
diagonal, is placed after the obtuse isosceles tri- 
angle, derived from the second diagonal of the 
oblong, there is an offense against symmetry 
pure and simple, against the order of derivation, 
which otherwise may be both direct and com- 
plete. Yet this offense against symmetry is 
found in many manuals. To order the right 
scalene, or the obtuse isosceles after the equilat- 
eral triangle is, in our opinion, an offense against 
symmetry, which does not permit any dislocation 
or hap-hazard arrangement of derived forms. 

The presence of the equilateral triangle in the 
tablets is a sin against symmetry, which allows 
no superfluous or outside form, as well as against 
derivation, which must be direct from the solid. 



222 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

The omission of the oblong tablet, and the 
omission of the acute isosceles triangle are 
violations of symmetry as well as of complete- 
ness of derivation. The division into quarters in 
the Fifth Gift has no counterpart in the tablets, 
still less has the suggested division into eighths. 
Sj^mmetry and completeness require that they at 
least be indicated to the child, who will finally 
call for them, though they be not especially 
embodied in the ijiaterial of this Gift. 

Such are the three general principles pertaining 
to derivation, which may be of some guidance to 
the kindergardner in her attempts to bring into 
order this somewhat chaotic Gift. Directness, 
completeness, symmetry — these will show the 
main lines of relationship between the antecedent 
solids and the derived surfaces. Any violation 
of them, at least in the primary and essential 
forms, produces a breach or a dissonance in the 
genetic sequence, which mars the educative value 
of the Gift. 

And we affirm emphatically that the child, once 
getting into the line of this genetic derivation, 
employs far more quickly and easily the present 
Gift and its related Gifts than if they be pre- 
sented unconnectedly and fragmentarilv. The 
reason is manifest: he himself, his Ego is just 
this creative energy which he sees unfolding and 
taking on form in these Gifts. 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.^THE SURFACE. 223 



OBSEKVATIONS ON THE TABLETS. 

The present Gift is not put up in a single box 
like the previous Gifts, but has several boxes, 
one for each kind of tablet. The number of 
pieces seems not so fixed as in the solid Gifts, 
and the rule of using all the material is not so 
rigidly enforced. 

1 . The training of the eye of the child to the 
unit of measure is continued in his use of the 
square inch tablet and other tablets. Also the 
training of the eye to the measurement of angles 
is begun, as it has hitherto been accustomed chiefly 
to the right angle, which is the fixed unit of 
measure or comparison for the variable angles, 
obtuse and acute. The right angle dominates in 
the Building Gifts of Froebel, and in architecture 
generally, in the house, in its rooms, doors, 
windows, etc. Particularly- Greek architecture 
is in the main rectangular, into which the Eoman 
introduced his arch. The right angle is a kind 
of standard of angularity, which is first to be 
acquired by the child. 

2. The most of the tablets can be modeled by 
the child out of clay, when he has begun the Oc- 
cupations, especially the first one, that of clay- 



224 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

modeling. Thus the connection between the 
Gifts of Concrete Magnitude and their derivatives 
in Abstract Magnitude becomes more vivid, 
indeed it becomes an outer act performed by the 
child himself in correspondence to the inner 
abstraction. In such a way does he think by 
doing, or make his doing think. In the Occupa- 
tions he is to reproduce his material, at least the 
form of it; so he forms his tablets, which hitherto 
have been given him. In other Occupations, 
such as paper-folding and paper-cutting, the 
tablet is or may be reproduced. In general, the 
surface begins to approach and invite the Occu- 
pations, furnishing to them their chief material, 
namely paper, which is nothing more than em- 
bodied surface waiting to be worked over into 
form. 

3. If we relegate the equilateral triangle, espe- 
cially in its formation, to stick-laying, where it 
properly belongs, we shall be rid of the chief 
burden. If we relegate the doctrine of angles, 
particularly the acute and the obtuse, to the next 
Gift, where it has the conditions of a proper 
treatment, we shall have time and opportunity 
for something else. 

If we leave out the lesser divisions, the eighths 
and in some cases possibly the quarters, which 
are secondary and less essential forms, it will help 
keep down the excessive increase of material — 
always a prime object. Still, for the sake of sym- 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE 8UBFACE. 225 

metry and completeness, the skillful kindergarcl- 
ner will be able to indicate even these lesser 
divisions, for some child will be sooner or later 
asking for them. 

4. Concentric surfaces have little constructive 
adaptability. One cannot make anything with 
them; thus their morphological capacity is in 
striking contrast with the flat surfaces, rectilineal 
and curvilineal, which are capable of an immense 
variety of forms. In this respect, the concentric 
surface (in Abstract Magnitude) differs from the 
concentric solid (in Concrete Magnitude) to whose 
form the arch in all its sizes belongs. Still the 
concentric surface is a logical part of the system 
of surfaces, and hence should be represented in 
the present Gift. It gives the idea of complete- 
ness, which is not in the rectilinear or curvilinear 
surfaces. This [completeness is 'often popularly 
expressed in metaphor by the terms all-sidedness 
and all-roundness (Cube and Sphere). The sur- 
face in concentrism returns into itseK, so to 
speak, and thus completes itself. For instance, 
the curve returning into itself as line makes the 
circle, but the circle returning into itself makes 
the sphere or completed spherical surface. 

Still further, concentrism suggests the move- 
ment inwards, to the genetic Point, which is the 
very source of this Gift and all the Gifts. And 
the Point is also the end toward which this Gift 
of Abstract Magnitude is tending, so that these 

15 



226 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

concentric forms may be said significantly to 
point towards the Point, being prophetic of the 
same. Likewise concentrism suggests the move- 
ment outwards, the unfolding of the inner energy, 
which manifests its degrees of power in these 
successive layers. 

5. In regard to nomenclature we should 
observe that these embodied concentric surfaces, 
even when spherical, are still called tablets, though 
the term is usually applied to flat surfaces, 
straight-lined and rounded. In the sense given 
the egg-shell would be a tablet. We need a gen- 
eral term embracing rectilineal, curvilineal and 
spherical surfaces, when re-embodied in this 
Gift for the child ; so we seize upon the word 
tablet and press it into service till a better is 
found. Moreover the word concentric at first 
suggests the circle within the circle, as the con- 
centric rings in water, or the concentric half- 
rings in a rainbow. But here we apply the term 
to spherical forms, and even to rectilineal square 
forms, as the cube within cube is concentric. 
It can also be applied to the cylinder, the cone, 
and the pyramid. The principle of concentrism 
is co-ordinate with, but distinct from, the curve 
and the straight Ihie, 

Concentrism accordingly, shows, not the linear, 
but the surface movement from inner to outer 
and from outer to inner. That is, the total sur- 
face moves, not limited bv straight lines or curves. 



FBOEBEUS PLAT GIFTS.— THE SUBFACE. 227 

The idea of totality now enters the surface and 
completes it in thought and for thought. The 
child will undoubtedly take this idea in his way, 
namely through the sensuous forms. Not much 
manipulation is required, and therefore not much 
time is taken. Still for the child, too, the con- 
ception of surface is by these concentric forms 
made complete. 

6. The question of color has not been touched 
upon, being deferred till we come to the Occupa- 
tions, in which it is first to be employed sys- 
tematically. In the quantitative Gifts, color is 
present, but its application is not explicitly set 
forth, inasmuch as it rightly belongs to the quali- 
tative Gifts. The fact should be stated, how- 
ever, that the earlier kindergardners, including 
Froebel himself, introduced color into their 
tablet work, thus making this complicated Gift 
more complicated, and adding to its material 
already overwhelming. 

7. Affain let us come back to the fundamental 
idea in all this mass of things: Derivation. 
The child is to develop Derivation within and 
without, to commune with the same and to make 
it his own. Thus he unfolds the inner genetic 
principle of himself and of the world, he shares 
in the creative act of the universe, and this is 
the highest goal of education. For it is this 
creative act which unifies him with the creator. 

8. Already we have heard the voice of the 



228 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Surface crying out for the Line, which bounds 
it, determines it, in a sense produces it; that 
was the call for the movable Line, free, inde- 
pendent, liberated from all servitude to matter 
and even liberated from the Surface. To this 
we now pass. 



FBOEBEVS PLAT GIFTS.— THE LINE. 229 



THE LINE. 

If we now take away in thought a second 
dimension, saj breadth, from the surface, we have 
one dimension left, length, or the Line. The 
solid, losing two dimensions, is simply lineal. 

Usually the forms of the Line, as straight or 
curved, have been classified in two Gifts (sticks 
and rings). It is a noteworthy fact that the cur- 
vilineal element first entered the Derived Gifts of 
Froebel in the Line (the rings), from which it 
seems ^ to have traveled backwards and to have 
suggested the round tablets, and now it is going 
back still further and is laying hold of the solids. 
Thus it is the Line which classifies and gives 
name to the rectilinear and curvilinear Gifts of 
Concrete Mao^nitude — solids which are straiffht- 
lined and curve-lined. In fact, rotundity, with 
which we started in the Ball, becomes completely 
explicit and free in the round line or circle. 

The same principles of derivation hold good in 
the line as in the surface, namely, there should 
be directness, completeness, symmetry. The 
genetic connection must remain active and in its 
integrity, otherwise the educative value of the 
Gift is impaired. The child himself will trace 
the relation between the present and the ante- 



230 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

cedent forms, he will feel any gap in the suc- 
cession, and be confused b}^ any superfluity or 
dislocation. If the material be incomplete, 
disjointed, disordered, the child, whose mind is 
inherently genetic, will lose much time and not 
get the main thing at last. 

Our task is, accordingly, to make the abstrac- 
tion of the Line and to embody that in a material 
form. It has been with us from the beginning 
in connection with sohds and surfaces, but now 
it is to be made free and to be regarded as it is 
in itself. Here we may note the same process 
as in all the Gifts of Abstract Magnitude : first 
is the concrete sohd, second is the abstraction, 
here the Line, third is the re-embodiment of this 
abstraction for the child in the form of sticks 
and rings. 

The single dimension which is now separated 
and held fast is length, while the tablet had two 
dimensions. Thus the line is further removed 
from the material solid, is more ideal than the 
surface, in which the line is still an edge and not 
yet free. We may, therefore, say that the line 
is more a thing of mind than the surface and is 
more adjustable to mind and thought than the 
surface. We lay the sticks (lines) as we please, 
but in the tablet the line is fixed in the material, 
is determined by that, and not by us, at least not 
directly by us. Such is the chief new fact 
appearing in the line : its ideality, its freedom. 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE LINE. 231 

The bound or the limit, accordingly, is cut off 
from its obiect and set free , being no longer fast 
in matter. It is movable, having all the liberty 
of space, and can be run any whither, even to the 
furthest star. This property is what gives it a 
form-making power, in a manner we shall see 
that these sticks introduce us to formation, even 
to reproduction, and thus herald the approach 
of the occupations. 

Let us trace a little this liberation of the line, 
which in a way has been enslaved from the 
beginning of the Gifts, though always struggling 
toward greater freedom. Nearest to being free 
it is in the side of the bounded surface, as it 
shares in the ideality of the latter, but is still 
tied to the same as limit. In the edge of the 
Cube it is explicit, visible, yet held fast in matter. 
In the Sphere, however, it is implicit, unseen, 
not yet brought out, not yet born into the world. 
As diameter or axis of the Sphere, it is merely an 
internal Line which is, first of aU, to make itself 
outer. This undeveloped stage is the least de- 
gree of freedom. So the diameter of the Sphere, 
the edge of the Cube, the side of the Square, are 
all steps in the process of the Line, which in the 
Eighth Gift has declared itself ' ' free and inde- 
pendent." 

When we consider the material of this Gift 
(or Gifts), we find the same general character; 
there is no absolute fixity in it, or at least it 



232 THE -PSYCHOLOGY OF 

allows greater variation than other Gifts. The 
sticks are put up in packages, say ten in number , 
but this may vary. Then the number of sticks 
in each package is under no iron necessity. 
They are usually of a certain length, yet they 
are breakable and ought to be broken when the 
end in view demands it, for this is not destruc- 
tion, but formation. 

Thus the material through its freedom, is 
adjustable, it begins to have a kind of plastic 
quality. The sticks are adjustable in space, 
being movable; adjustable in themselves, as 
regards length; adjustable in the quantity of 
material, at least up to a certain point. Thus 
the external element of matter is no longer such 
a controlUng thing as in the solid Gifts ; an inner 
principle seems to be more decisively in command. 

Still this new freedom must not be allowed to 
lapse into license, wherein lies the danger of the 
present Gift. Too often a bundle of sticks is 
thrown to the child that he ma}^ give vent to his 
caprice, which has become troublesome to the 
kindergardner, or uncontrollable. 

But in such a case the tub will not usually 
satisfy the whale, now incarnate in the form of 
the little boy, who well knows what the whole 
thins: means. He is bound to assert his free- 
dom, having in hand a free weapon. Have we 
not seen these sticks broken to pieces and thrown 
on the table and lioor, or used as a kind of bayo- 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE LINE. 233 

net with thrust delivered in full charge, each 
child trying to poke it into the ear, nose, mouth, 
eye of his neighbor, who sets up a howl and 
retaliates with grim vengeance? Like freedom 
itself, these free sticks can be employed for the 
greatest disorder, turning the kindergarden into 
a little mob full of riot and fight and chaos 
generally. And so the children, like many 
grown people, must make a start to get free of 
some of their freedom. Accordingly we are to 
have order in stick-laying, as we are to have law 
in our liberty. The starting-point is to bring 
order into our material and to connect it ge- 
netically, and, if possible, sj^mmetrically, with 
what has gone before. We found in the solid 
Gifts (concrete magnitude), as well as in the 
surfaces w^hich we have just considered, a move- 
ment of this sort: rectilineal, curvihneal, unifi- 
cation of the two. It will be observed that this 
division is based upon the line, that is, upon the 
very element which is now abstracted and re- 
garded by itself. Thus we have reached down 
to the principle itself of the previous organiza- 
tion of the Gifts, which principle is now to 
organize itseK. Let us see how it will behave 
in this new domain, whose contents may be 
ordered as follows : — 

I. Eectilinear forms, those figures which are 
bounded by straight lines, and so are given in 
outline. 



234 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

1. Quadrangular, or better, quadrilateral fig- 
ures, such as the square or the oblong, which 
are now re-produced by sticks. 

2. Triangular figures, formed from the pre- 
ceding by diagonals, which give the various 
triangles. Then a deeper separation here takes 
place, the separation between sides and angles. 
The angle now rises into importance and deter- 
mines the side which is movable. Triangulation 
or the makino^ of trianHes accordino' to the angle 
be£:ins at this stacre of stick-la vinof. 

3. Concentric figures, both quadrangular and 
triangular; or squares within squares and tri- 
ano^les within trianoies. 

(1.) First is the immediate idea of size 
through the different sizes laid alongside of one 
another. 

(2.) A new difference manifests itself, that 
between size and form, the latter being the fixed, 
the invariable — all these sizes of triangles in 
concentric layers have the same form. Also the 
form is the determinant of the size, whicli thus 
finds its ground. 

(3.) The inner, invisible pomt, the genetic 
center of all these forms, is suggested by concen- 
trism, which moves towards the same as its source 
or cause. 

All concentric figures, though they be recti- 
lineal in form, hint a determining center and a 
line extending from within outwards, wliich line 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE LINE. 235 

taken as a radius will produce a circle. Hence 
we go over in thought to the following : — 

II. Curvilinear forms — those figures which 
are bounded wholly or in part by curved lines, 
and so are given in outline. Usually they are 
made to constitute a new Gift, the ninth, that of 
the rino-s. The curves are confined to the circle. 

1. The entire circle as anouthneof the Sphere 
whose rotundity is reduced to a Line. 

2 . The division of the whole circle into halves 
and quarters (and possibly eighths). Thus the 
rectilineal element enters the curvihneal and 
unites with it to produce new figures. 

3. Concentric circles or rings, of three sizes 
and in three divisions, all pointing toward the 
determining center. 

III. The two elements of the Line, the straight 
and the curved, are united in many ways, produc- 
ino- many forms. Already we noticed the recti- 
lineal separating yet joined with the curvilineal 
in the half and quarter circle. A full develop- 
ment of the forms which result from the union of 
these two elements belongs to the Morphology 
of the Gifts, which subject lies outside of our 
present plan. 

Such, however, is a brief summary of the em- 
bodied hue, the second stage of the Gifts of 
Abstract Magnitude, having one dimension, that 
of length. Its relation to the Gifts of Abstract 
Magnitude is manifest from the preceding outline, 



236 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

wherein are shown its direct derivation, its 
completeness and its symmetry. 

The student will note how strong the principle 
of reproduction of pre^dous forms is in this Gift. 
Herein it approaches the character of the Occu- 
pations whose essential fact we shall see to be 
just this reproduction. The sticks reproduce in 
outline all the surfaces, square and round, resem- 
bling the Occupations of sewing, dotting, draw- 
ing. In fact, stick-laying may be considered an 
embodiment of rude linear drawing. 

Still stick-laying belongs to the Gifts and not 
to the Occupations, inasmuch as it emploj^s ex- 
ternal combination of objects and not the inner 
properties of matter, though when you break a 
stick you test and employ an inner property. 
Owing: to the freedom of the Line which the stick 
represents, it has a reproducing power in its 
combinations. So the Line is on the border of 
the Occupations and is quite ready to go over to 
that realm, where we shall often meet with it in 
the shape of a thread or slat or strip, or even a 
cut Line. Indeed the slat is a Gift if its pieces 
are merely laid or externally combined; when, 
however, its pieces are held together in forms by 
elasticity, the whole belongs to the occupations 
through the employment of an inner property of 
matter. (See this subject unfolded in the intro- 
duction to the Occupations.) 

The Line can be used for counting, indeed a 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE LINE. 237 

primitive way of reckoning or keeping tally is by 
means of little sticks, still in use in cases where 
* « figures can be made to lie " by being rubbed 
out or changed. Indeed the abstraction of the 
Line has a greater affinity for number, which is 
also an abstraction, than the solid or even the sur- 
face. Lines easily stand for, perchance turn to, 
numbers ; hence they are often used in the kin- 
dergarden for the first lessons in arithmetic. 

The Line gives the inch in length and hence 
furnishes the basic measuring unit or modulus 
for distance. The linear inch is now separated 
from the cubic inch and also the square inch, and 
does service in its own right. And in the 
matter of real service, it mostly performs 
the work of the other two, being free and 
adjustable; we measure the square mile by a 
Line as well as the cubic yards of a reser- 
voir or an excavation. So the Line is the prac- 
tical man of the family, who finds out by his 
yard-stick or tape-string the length, breadth, and 
height of the object. Actual measuring (and 
with this comes necessarily counting) enters in 
completeness with the Line, though we have 
made a beginning in the previous Gifts. 

Geometry has also its strong claim upon stick- 
laying ; we have already seen how important it 
is for embodying geometric figures. Especially 
the doctrine of the triangle with its two variable 
angles, the acute and the obtuse, belongs here. 



238 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

In stick-laying we should introduce whatever 
there is of angle-measuring (goniometry) allow- 
able in the kindergarden (which cannot be very 
much). Those highly important angles in all 
construction, 30, 60, 45, and 90 degrees, the 
child may at least see and construct in his more 
advanced course, even if he does not name them. 
To a certain extent he can become familiar with 
them and judge of them, just as he learns dis- 
tance and computes it unconsciously. Thus he 
is making a faint start in another mathematical 
science, trigonometry, one of whose main elements 
rests upon angle-measuring in a triangular shape. 

Already it has been said that triangularity has 
a special place in this Gift. "We may note a 
small beginning and advance in several important 
sciences — arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, 
drawing. All this, of course, is given in play, 
with material things ; but the play, though spon- 
taneous, is filled with meaning and instruction; 
through it the child is taking possession of his 
true spiritual heritage transmitted from the past 
and containing the future. In this way stick- 
laying is not a means of license but of freedom, 
brino:in(y to the child a little strain of the cosmos 
and not a discord of chaos. 

Rings. It has been already stated that the 
sticks and the rings have been arranged in two 
separate Gifts. The ring is the embodied circle 
as distinct from the Sphere. The circle has a 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.^THE LINE. 239 

very important place both in nature and mind. 
In the hitter, it has always been taken to repre- 
sent in outward shape the return, which plays 
such an important part in mythology, poetry, art, 
as well as in psychology. It is, therefore, one 
of the most significant and cherished symbols of 
the human race. In these gifts it appears in 
genetic order next to the last one, symbolizing in 
outward shape the return which is soon to become 
inward. Of this we shall speak again. 

We have already unfolded these circular forms 
in their psychical order and connection. Yet 
here comes the first discord. That the cur\d- 
lineal element should be placed in a special Gift 
and thus separated from the rectilineal throws 
the movement out of symmetry with the Seventh 
Gift in which both elements are joined together. 
Still as all manuals within our knowledge are 
agreed on this point of making and numbering 
the two Gifts, we shall at present have to follow. 
It is true, however, that the numbering of the 
Gifts of Abstract Magnitude varies in the differ- 
ent manuals, though most of the later ones call 
the rings the Ninth Gift. 

The quantity and kind of material have also 
varied with different authors. Froebel's widow, 
who published after his death this play-gift from 
suggestions of Froebel himself, has 24 whole 
circles and 48 half circles, and apparently (we 
only know the work through others) no quarter 



240 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

circles. The latest books dimmish this material, 
and add the quarter circles, which make it sym- 
metrical with the double cuts previously sug- 
gested in the solid Gifts and in the tablets 
(usually 12 whole, 18 half, 12 quarter circles). 
Also three sizes, three, two, and one inch in 
diameter. 

The ring suggests the return to the ball of 
which it is an outline ; the periphery is seen as a 
hue whose character is to return into itself. 
Thus the circle has not beginning or end, it is 
in a way self -limiting and hence has been often 
used as the symbol of eternity. The ring 
with its abstraction from the solid sus^o^ests the 
self-returning Ego more emphatically than the 
Sphere, since just this self -return is what is ab- 
stracted in the circle. The straight line is bent 
around till it comes back to itself, as it were, like 
consciousness. M}i:hology has seized upon the 
circle and hinted its importance in the earth- 
serpent, which, coiling round our globe, puts its 
tail into its mouth and thus holds up our terres- 
trial sphere. And somehow at last it must be 
upheld by self-determination. 

The angle, which was such an important ele- 
ment in the preceding Gift (sticks), quite van- 
ishes in the circle. All angularity is trans- 
formed into roundness, whereof the meaning is 
hinted in the metaphorical use of the terms. The 
line of beauty is supposed to be a curve, though 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE LINE. 241 

certainly the straight line is also employed in art, 
and in morals the right (right-lined) has a better 
name than the crooked or devious. 

The curvilineal outline is more suitable for the 
reproduction of vegetable and animal forms. 
Nature bends and turns and curves; the tree 
rounds itself out in going upward into the cylin- 
drical stem, and broadens itself into the round- 
shaped leaf. 

The semi-circle shows the circle divided, and 
is not so permanent a form, not so self-contained 
as the circle; it participates in other things, 
while the circle produces the impression of ex- 
clusiveness, self-sufficiency. Turn it about and 
it is the same, or in the same relation to the 
outer world. Not so the half -circle, whose self- 
including home (which is the total circle), 
has been broken into, and the outside world 
can step in. 

Moreover from tip to tip it suggests a straight 
line; here the stick can be added. So there be- 
gins a union of the curvilinear and the rectihnear, 
which is still further developed in the quarter 
circles. Thus the circle and its diameter have 
become visible, which conception we started 
with in the sphere. 

Also letters of the alphabet and figures of 
arithmetic are made by the child from the vari- 
ous shapes of stick and ring united. 

The semicircle we can take from the arch and 



242 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

the arc , both of which we have noted in the 
Buildino^ Gifts. Or we can take it from a divis- 
ion of the Cylinder, which belongs to the Second 
(Originative) Gift. 

It has been already observed that the concen- 
tric rings are seeking the Point inward, which is 
their center and origin. They give in outline 
the Sphere or its periphery, so that the Point as 
the center of rotundity has now become visible, 
explicit, embodied — which as implicit was the 
starting-point of the Ball. So the concentric rings 
begin to carry us back to the beginning — which 
movement is not yet completed, but will be soon, 
in the Point taken by itself. 

We may consider the circle (or ring) as an 
outer self -return, the end visibly comes back to 
the beginning. But this circle also suggests the 
Point within, as central and determining; this 
Point will show the inner and deeper self -return 
which embraces the whole series of Gifts, which, 
however, must be ideal, though intimated to the 
child by these ordered sensuous objects. This 
Point suggested by the circle and specially by the 
concentric circles, is next to appear, taking on 
visible shape for the child. 



FROEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE LINE. 243 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE LINE. 

1. The first reflection which comes to the kin- 
dergardner in reference to the foregoing sugges- 
tions, pertains to the increase of material. 
Already we have been giving some hints with an 
eye to this difficulty. It is very generally agreed 
that the kindergarden has now all the material 
it can employ to advantage. Still certain 
changes must be allowed, if they are made in the 
spirit, not of innovation, but of improvement. 
If we can find a better ordering of the material, 
and a better method of presenting it to the child, 
there will be progress. Attention may be called 
to the following points : — 

(a.) A little increase of material may be a 
great increase in clearness and genetic sequence. 
An additional block may bridge a chasm for the 
child and thus bring about a great gain in time. 
Hence we are to consider carefully in what part 
and for what purpose any increase of material is 
made. A stone brought and thrown into the 
stream may enable us to step over at once, 
where otherwise we would be detained for hours, 
or brought to an absolute standstill. An in- 
crease of material does not necessarily signify, 



244 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

therefore, an increase of work, but may mean a 
decided diminution of it. 

(S.) There needs to be no increase of material. 
The primary and essential derivation of surfaces 
and lines must always have representative forms, 
but the secondary and less essential derivation 
(for instance, the division into quarters and 
eighths) can be indicated at times in a simple 
suggestion (say, by means of drawing, paper- 
cutting, or paper-folding). Still the primary 
derivation must have all the qualities above 
given : it must be direct, complete, symmetrical. 

In this manner, the material of surfaces and 
lines becomes, in a degree, elastic; it can be 
increased or diminished, without impairing the 
genetic process of the Gifts, xind we must recall 
that a large portion of this material was origi- 
nally made by the kindergardner — a condition 
of thino^s which has its decided advantas^es over 
the manufactured material of the present time. 
Though we cannot go back to that condition, we 
may seek to restore some of those advantages. 

(c.) Even if the material be increased, the 
child learns to employ it far more quickly and 
easily when he has before himself the total 
derivation, than when it is given to him hap- 
hazard and in fragments. When the genetic 
thread is clear, consecutive, and whole, the 
quantity of material makes not so much diifer- 
ence, he can string it all on the thread. 



FBOEBEVS FLAY GIFTS.— THE LINE. 245 

The great saving to be made is in time and 
effort, and in the avoidance of mental confusion. 
Now if the genetic thread be broken, or dis- 
located, a small quantity of material will soon 
become burdensome and confusing. 

The main educative object of the Gifts is the 
genesis, the derivation, which is the child's own 
creativity realized in things which he sees and 
with which he plays. If he be truly the child of 
the Creator, he must be able to create after his 
divine Parent; in fact, he must play creation, 
even the Creation of the Universe, after the 
original divine fiat. 

2. The so-called Jointed Slat is a line and thus 
belongs under the present caption. The Slat is 
essentially a stick, though it is sometimes thought 
to be a transitional form between a surface and a 
line, on account of its breadth. But its essence 
is linear, the breadth is employed simply as a 
convenience for making the joint, in which lies 
the especial characteristic of this kind of line. 

The Jointed Slat, therefore, has the point of 
intersection fixed, yet axial; thus the variable 
angle as well as its movable sides are made 
visible. The sticks now lay themselves, so to 
speak, they make their own angles and figures, 
the outer inpact being given. The Jointed Slat 
thus suggests the axial nature of the Point, or the 
Point as turning-point when taken by itself. Such 
is the prophesy here, which is soon to be fulfilled. 



246 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

3. The Thread-game may also to be introduced 
in this connection, as it is based upon the line. 
There are several kinds of Thread-games; the 
chief one is the makins: of the outline of forms 
by means of a wet thread moved by the finger on 
a surface. The pliability of the thread is the 
property which mainly comes into play ; this use 
of an inner property suggests the Occupations, 
but as the thread is manipulated by the hand 
without an implement, this game may be still 
regarded as a Gift. On the other hand, the 
forms of the wet thread are not given to the 
child and these combined, but are made by him; 
this fact again brings the game into touch with 
the Occupations. 

The Thread-game has no fixed point, but is a 
line pliable at every point, wherein lies its con- 
trast with the Jointed Slat. Thus the axis is 
movable as well as the line, the joint is any- 
where, and the line follows. The rigidity of the 
stick and ring is now broken at every point, and 
the line in its material representative has become 
absolutely flexible, yielding, responsive; it is 
ready to be straight or curved or both together. 
In fact, other forms now begin to come to light, 
hitherto not possible, such as the oval, and even 
the spiral. 

It is manifest that in the thread the line has 
attained a considerable degree of freedom within 
itself. At first the line was a liberation from 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE LINE, 247 

matter and then from the surface. Still it was 
rigid in the sticks and rings — which was a kind 
of unfreedom. This movement toward freedom 
inside the line itself through various plays we 
may briefly designate as follows : — 

(a.) The simple stick (straight, round, con- 
centric), separate by itself, yet fixed within 
itself at every point, or at most a little flexible. 
These sticks produce forms from an outside force 
wholly, applied to each stick. 

(b.) The jointed stick, fixed at one point on 
which it turns ; or several sticks fixed too^ether 
at several points. These sticks produce forms 
from the inside, from the fixed point, though the 
starting force comes from the outside. 

(c.) The flexible thread, which is aline with 
an axis at every point ; thus line and point are 
movable, and in this sense free. The forms are 
produced from the inside, not, however, from 
the fixed point, but from the movable point 
shifting anywhere along the line. 

Thus we may trace a movement in these three 
plays with the line from an outer to an inner 
freedom, from the line as externally determined 
to a condition of internal determination. On 
account of this last fact, the wet thread seems 
to the child to make fissures which have life and 
wriggle and crawl. Popular belief aflGirms that a 
horse-hair thrown into water becomes alive and 
turns to a snake. 



248 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

4. All stick-laying, on account of its produc- 
ing line and outline so distinctly to the eye, may 
be considered a kind of drawing, and so on this 
side the present Gift (or Gifts) approaches the 
Occupations. Especially the Thread-game, by 
means of its free-moving outline, lends itseK 
easily to a rude kind of picture-making, and 
thus is .very interesting to the child, who sees 
the forms growing, as it were, beneath his fingers. 
The ends of the thread being joined together, 
and the whole thread moistened and laid upon a 
surface, any change in its outline produces a new 
shape. We may also see in this play of thread- 
forms how the Point as axial moves out of itself, 
how it is in a sense self -moving or self -separating, 
and projects itself into a line — a thought which 
we shall find to be fundamental when we come 
to the Point. Indeed we may behold a transition 
here from the Line to the Point. 

5. We may again emphasize the fact that con- 
centrism in the Gifts of Froebel first appeared 
in the Line, specially in the rings. In fact, con- 
centric rings, are often seen in nature, for in- 
stance in water, in certain stones, in the phenom- 
ena of the sky, and in the vegetable kingdom. 
Annular shapes and outlines are also very com- 
mon in art, particularly in decoration. 

But in the present exposition we have applied 
the term concentrism, not only to the line, but 
also to the surface and likewise to the solid. 



FBOEBEUS PLAT GIFTS.— THE LINE. 249 

Such an application of the term extends its usage, 
and causes some difficulty at first. Therefore it 
is well for the student to remember the follow- 
ing items in this matter : — 

(a.) Concentrism is applied to straight lined 
figures (for instance, the square and the cube) 
as well as to curved figures. 

(5.) It is applied to the spherical surface as 
well as to the flat surface. 

(c.) It is applied to the forms of Concrete as 
well as of Abstract Magnitude — solids, surfaces, 
and lines. 

(c?.) The ring within the ring is the plainest 
and probably the primary usage of concentrism. 
But from this its first and simplest application it 
passes to embracing quite all the Gifts in its 
sweep. 

So much in regard to the use of the word. In 
regard to principle of concentrism and its place 
in a complete ordering of the kindergarden 
Gifts, we have already spoken sufficiently. 

6. We have already alluded to the import of 
the Line in its ethical aspect (see the discussion 
under the head of the Curvilineal Gifts ) . Lan- 
guage picks up the Line and applies it metaphori- 
cally to human conduct. We have to think, 
accordingly, that there is a moral suggestiveness 
and hence moral trainino^ in the Line for the 
child. In the history of the race, man seems to 
make the abstraction of the Line when he makes 



250 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

the abstraction of the virtues, and names a num- 
ber of the latter after the Line, which thus ap- 
pears to him an outer sensuous representation of 
inner character. 

In the Gifts of Concrete Magnitude we have 
anticipated the Line, making it the basis of the 
important distinction into rectilineal and curvi- 
lineal. Thus the Line has already shown itself 
a governing principle in the ordering of solids. 
And hereafter in the industrial occupations we 
shall see the Line manifest the same power. It 
will divide and then unite things ; it will limit 
and hence form figures ; it will enter into matter 
and transform the same, along with the other 
elements of Abstract Magnitude (surface and 
point). 

7. Already the Line has, in a number of ways, 
been calling to, or, if you please, pointing to 
the Point as its source, origin, cause. The 
beginning and end of the Line are in the Point, 
which is thus its Alpha and Omega, whence it 
cometh and whither it goeth . In the Thread-game 
the Line revealed the Point as its axis. In 
the concentric rings the movement is from and 
to the Point as the central source. So we may 
see the Line ever suggesting and indeed return- 
inoj to its oriojin — the Point. 

The Line, accordingly, forces us to the Point, 
literally and metaphorically. To the Point, 
then, we go. 



FBOEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— THE POINT. 251 



THE POINT. 

This is usually numbered as the Tenth Gift 
and is the last of the Quantitative Gifts. The 
Point has its difficulty, owing to the obvious con- 
tradictory elements in its conception. It is the 
abstraction from all Magnitude, yet it is a prin- 
ciple of Magnitude just in such abstraction; it is 
the negative of all space yet is spatial just in 
its negation; it is the annulment of all the 
dimensions, yet somehow remains a dimension, 
and the most important one ; it is the end and 
winding up of all the Quantitative Gifts just 
through its undoing of Quantity ; stiU we have 
to consider it a true Quantitative Gift. 

Such are some of the points which set the 
brain to whizzing about the Point. We must 
consider this to be not a dead Point, but active, 
yea self -active in a sense; it is axial, turns on 
itself, and hence can return; it is indeed the 
Point of Return, moving out of the Abstract to 
the Concrete, and still further sweeping back to 
the beginning, to that initial central Point of the 
Sphere out of which all the Gifts have been 
unfolded. 

From these statements the fundamental fact 



252 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

concerning the Point begins, we hope, its dawn- 
ing:: it is a tliouo^ht, and hence endowed with the 
creative power of thought, of the Ego itself, of 
which it is an externalized representative. 

So we have come to the final Gift of Abstract 
Magnitude, the Point, which abstracts from all 
three dimensions — length, breadth, and thick- 
ness. What is left? It would seem to be mere 
nothing and in one sense it is ; there is no longer 
any outer extended space, even in the form of a 
line; all extension is negated, and the extensive 
or quantitative Gifts have reached their conclu- 
sion in the Point. 

Still there is something left, some result, and 
that is just this act of abstraction, which is now 
to be projected into externality. Tlie Point is 
the abstract negative power of the Ego exter- 
nalized, it is tlie Ego's mastery over space made 
spatial. That is, starting with the Point the Ego 
begins to re-construct space out of itself, deter- 
mining it by Point, Line, and Plane, which are its 
own,- it makes over space just as it makes over 
matter, it produces in space the form or the 
mould into which it is going to pour the material 
world. The Point is really subjective, the Point 
of the Ego, which has just this separating power 
within itself and self -projection into an object. 

In the Point, therefore. Abstract Magnitude 
has abstracted from all Magnitude, from all 
extension, for the Point has no Magnitude, no 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— TEE POINT. 253 

extension — no length, breadth, or thickness. 
Yet the Point has position, it is said; it is posi- 
tive, not negative, or not wholly so ; what is this 
positive element in it? Inasmuch as it is the 
active, negative might which overcomes space, 
it must have the positive mastery over space; 
the Point is the primordial space-controller, 
the creative starting-place of form. In this 
connection we may note that the Gifts begin 
with the Ball and the Ball is determined by an 
inner central Point, out of which with the dia- 
metral Line is generated this whole movement of 
Play -gifts. 

The Point has existence, accordingly, in the 
Ego primarily as space-negating, and hence as 
space-controlling. It is the turning-point of the 
Gifts, turning them back to the beginning, and 
hence brino^ins: about the return or the third 
stage of the Psychosis of the Gifts ; but it is also 
the turning-point forwards, carrying the Gifts 
over into the Occupations through its generative 
or reproductive energy. 

We noticed the freedom of the Line through 
being abstracted from surface and solid. In like 
manner the Point has become free, movable, no 
longer fixed as it was in the angle of a triangle 
or in the corner of a cube. 

But the freedom of the Point is different from 
that of the Line, being free of spatial length, 
which still incumbers the latter in image or idea. 



254 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

The Line is still stiff, so to speak, having many 
points infixed relation to one another. But now 
even this fixity of the Line is dissolved into 
its elements; the remaining principle of exten- 
sion, which is length, vanishes into the Point, 
which is the complete abstraction from all space 
or extension. 

There is a kind of history of this liberation of 
the Point, as there was of the Line. The Point, 
too, was enslaved, imprisoned, enchained pri- 
marily in the very heart of the Ball, where it lay 
in its dark dungeon, held fast even in the Line 
between two radii. Then came its first seeing of 
the light of heaven when it issued forth as the 
corner of the Cube, though still involved in and 
weighed down by matter. A new release it was 
when made into the ideal angle of some line- 
bounded surface, till now it has escaped even 
from this last thralldom, and is free and inde- 
pendent in its own right. Or we may regard these 
as the stages of its birth, for as it lies in the Ball 
it is the child yet unborn, which is to come into 
daylight and grow up into independence, becom- 
ing a free individual. An indi\ddual, literally 
that which cannot be divided, hence not spatial, 
not extended, a true unit, '' one and indivisible." 

We see that the Point breaks up form, spe- 
cially geometric form, being spatial. Through 
the abstraction from all three dimensions — 
length, breadth, height — the outward shape 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE POINT. 255 

vanishes into the Point. But the Point as just 
this abstraction from all the dimensions, is itself 
a dimension, a new dimension which is master 
over the former dimensions which belonged to 
extension. What is this new dimension which is 
the dimension (or measurer) of the three dimen- 
sions? It is number, and so with the conception 
of the Point we begin to count, count one, the 
individual unit as distinct from any form of ex- 
tension. Thus Geometry passes into and is 
determined by Arithmetic; Form vanishes into 
and is measured by Number. Fundamentally we 
count by Points ; objects numbered are mentally 
converted into Points. 

Here we may add a word about counting, 
which we have had hitherto in connection with 
Solids and Lines, that is, in connection with 
objects. But counting also is to declare its inde- 
pendence and to be free, free as the Point, in its 
separation from all material things. Hence it 
comes that abstract counting properly begins 
with the Point, begins in its own right, no longer 
bound to a Cube or a Line. Thus the passage 
from the concrete to the abstract receives a great 
advance when number begins to be abstracted 
from its material substrate and to be grasped by 
the child as it is in itself. 

Still at first the child has to count Points, 
which must be made visible. Hence it comes 
that the Point, this complete abstraction of all 



256 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

body, must itseK be re-embodied for the child. 
The Point, whose essence is the taking away of 
all material form, must be given a material form. 
The abstract must be made real, the ideal must 
be re-incarnated. The child has had the Point 
from the beginning, in Ball, Cube, Surface, 
Line, but not fully explicit, held fast in some- 
thing alien to itself. But now it is abstracted, 
separated, self -included ; yet just as this act of 
abstraction it must be endowed with a form. 
Here we again note the same process which we 
have found in all Abstract Magnitude: first the 
concrete object in which the Point is implicit; 
second, the abstraction of the Point; third, the 
return to the concrete object for the re-embodi- 
ment of the Point. 

But what material shall be taken for such 
re-embodiment ? Various small objects have been 
suggested, pebbles, shells, bits of wood, cork, 
clay; but a seed of some sort, such as a bean or 
lentil, contains the best suggestion of the Point. 
For the seed is that central germ which unfolds 
into a large line, such as the trunk of a tree ; 
yea into a thousand lesser lines seen in root, 
branch, stem. Still further, it unfolds into the 
surface in the bark, or a thousand surfaces in the 
leaves — all of which are bringing forth the total 
solid, the vegetable as a whole. Finally in a 
self -returning cycle of time, usually the year, the 
seed too returns into itself, reproducing itself in 



FBOEBEUS PL A Y GIFTS.— THE POIN T. 257 

a thousand seeds possibly, and so completes its 
own genetic cycle. 

In like manner the Point, starting as a germ 
implicit in the Sphere, unfolds through all the 
Gifts until it reaches itself again, being now 
explicit in the Point of Abstract Magnitude. 
Such is the suggestion of the seed, and this very 
seed ought to be planted by the child, in a box 
of earth if no other way is possible, and thus 
made a part of that garden- work which belongs 
to the kindergarden and gave to it originally its 
name. Thereby Nature will be felt to be one and 
harmonious, showing even in her vegetable pro- 
cess a deep correspondence with the movement 
of these Gifts, though they be only spatial, 
quantitative, and not of life. 

The Point must, therefore, be declared to be a 
most important matter; its conception is abso- 
lutely necessary for the comprehension of the 
complete genetic movement of these Gifts. In 
fact, the genetic conception itself is embodied in 
the Point, which must at last be seized not merely 
as negative, but as positive and productive. 
For this reason it is the starting-point and the 
returning-point of the Gifts as well as the transi- 
tion-point to the Occupations. Thus it is the 
pivot, and may be called distinctively the pivotal 
Gift. 

The concentric element in surfaces and in lines 
vanishes in the Point, toward which they seem 

17 



268 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

to move as toward their source. They suggest 
the center for which they are seeking. So all 
matter, whatever be its form, manifests a seeking 
of the center, being outside of the same; on the 
surface of the earth the material object falls in 
a right line toward the center by gravitation ; but 
in the free motion of the heavenly bodies are 
produced circles or ellipses round the center, 
analoo^ous to these embodied concentric rino^s 
round the Point. In the case of the planet 
Saturn, concentric rings become visible encircling 
the body of the planet itself. 

On the other hand, the concentric rings and 
sphere-shells suggest the movement outward 
from the Point or the creative center, in a series 
of successive circling waves, like those which 
flow from a pebble thrown into the placid surface 
of a lake. Or we may call up the vegetable 
world in one of its great divisions (the exogens) 
represented in the tree and its circling layers of 
wood telling of the circling years which have 
revolved round that plant as a living center and 
left behind upon it these memorials of their own 
concentric nature, which flings all passing time, 
and therewith all eternity, into cycles, the 
so-called cycles of the ages. 

Thus we have found the Point to be active 
within itself , to have its own inner separation and 
self -projection, whereby not only the Point but 
the whole series of Quantitative Gifts make a 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE POINT. 269 

grand turn in their career, which is veritably the 
return. This will bring out also a new phase of 
concentrism, the inner or spiritual one, which 
will reveal all these Gifts returning through the 
Point toward their fountain-head in a succession 
of concentric cycles, till they reach their central 
genetic source, which is likewise a Point. Thus 
the outer concentrism with which we started in 
the Sphere, has become an inner one, and therein 
has profoundly justified itself as an element of 
these Gifts. The symbol has deepened itseK 
into the thing symbolized, that which was given 
outwardly in a material object to the senses, 
is turning inward and is being transformed 
into the fundamental and the final spiritual fact 
of the entire process through which we have 
traveled. 

So much by way of anticipation, for this 
phase of concentrism is something not yet fully 
unfolded. We must now grasp the Point as 
active, yea as self -active in a sense, as turning on 
itself and henceforth developing out of itself. 
Thus we pass to the following : 

II. The Active or Internal Separation of 
Abstract Magnitudes. If the reader will look 
back to the Simple Separation of Abstract Mag- 
nitudes, the caption corresponding to the present 
one will be found, and the psychical connection 
will be suggested. Separation, there passive and 



260 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

external, is here active, beginning with the Point, 
which carries its own inner, self -separating 
energy over into Line and Surface. Here we 
reach the axis, the pivot, the Point as turning- 
point. 

The Gifts of Abstract Magnitude have, accord- 
ingly, been unfolded in their simply immediate 
separation — Surface, Line, Point. The pre- 
ceding exposition has sought to give each of 
these elements its distinctive character. The 
outcome is the Point, already emphasized as the 
turning-point of the whole series of Quantitative 
Gifts; that is, the point where they begin to 
turn back to their starting-point. 

Such is the first stage of the Psychosis of Ab- 
stract Magnitude, that of simple separation, or 
the immediate abstraction from the solid form 
previously given. But now we are to see this 
separation as active within itself, beginning with 
the Point as self -separating, and not separated 
from tlie outside, for instance, from length, 
breadth, or height (or thickness). This is the 
second stage of the Psychosis in the present 
sphere, inasmuch as that which was externally 
separated in the previous stage, now separates 
itself internally and becomes creative. The fol- 
lowing will be the triple process : — 

1. The Point as self -separating. 

2. From Point to Line. 

3. From Line to Surface. 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE POINT. 261 

Thus the Point is axial, divides within and 
projects itself into the Line, which, gifted with 
the creative nature of its parent, the Point, be- 
comes also reproductive at every point and 
moves forth into the Surface, which in its turn 
will show the same creative energy. That is, 
both Line and Surface, being now generated of 
the Point, will inherit the latter 's genetic power, 
and continue its process into the creation of the 
solid. 

1. The Point must first be grasped as self- 
dividing, negating its negative nature manifested 
in its negation of space, and becoming positive 
or having position in space. The conception of 
the Point requires that it turn on its own axis ; 
it is not a fixed, not a crystallized Point in 
thought; it is genetic, and first of all, self- 
genetic. 

This is a difficult part of the subject and 
we may look at the Point again as the negation 
of length, breadth, and thickness, or of all three 
dimensions. Hence it is the extreme of abstrac- 
tion in the present sphere. But the Point, as 
having this negative energy which cancels all 
extension, be it Space, Time, or Matter, must 
show its own inherent character, and so cancels 
itself as Point. That is, it must turn on itself 
as Point, projecting itself from itself and creating 
the Line. Thus it is genetic, and will proceed 
to reproduce all the Abstract Magnitudes and 



262 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

then will pass to the Concrete. The result of 
its negative act cannot be mere nothingness, 
since its own destructive nature was that which 
was canceled. The immanent activity of the 
Point is that which makes it overcome itself and 
eject itself into a Line, continuing from the Line 
its genetic power till it reaches the soHd. 

2. The Point separating within itself and 
moving to another Point, produces the Line, into 
which the Point vanishes, as it were. The child 
lays a seed alongside another seed, repeats the act, 
and finds that it has a new element, the Line, 
which is the Point externalizing itself, or making 
the separation outside (between two Points) and 
not inside (as in the first stage). Hence this 
is explicitly the separative stage. 

Point-laying, which produces the Line, is even 
more significant than stick-laying, inasmuch as 
the Line is given already in stick-laying, which 
is simply external combination. Here again we 
note the reproductive idea, implicit as yet, but 
which is to be made explicit in the Occupations, 
for instance in dotting, pricking, sewing, etc. 

3. The Line, in general, moves into the Sur- 
face, having the same genetic power as the Point 
from which it is derived. The Line of seeds 
easily returns into itself and suggests the Sur- 
face by the outline which results. 

Thus the Point has unfolded, having pro- 
jected itself through the Line back into the Sur- 



FROEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE POINT. 263 

face, which we recollect, was the first abstraction 
in the process of Abstract Magnitude, whose end 
was the simple Point. But this Point has now 
come back to the Surface, has really produced it; 
yet the Surface, as already set forth, ended in 
the Point. So this last Surface has in it the re- 
turn to the Point, which is taken up into it and 
makes it active, creative. That is, the Surface 
must now become self -separating like the Point, 
and project itseK into the solid. 

Though we embody the Point, ultimately we 
cannot behold it in vision, nor even image it. 
But we can image the Line as extended in space, 
or the activity of the Point moving into the Line. 
But the Point as such is just the negation of this 
extension. What then are we to do? We have 
to think the Point, not being able to perceive it 
or to image it ; we must create it within by an 
act of thought, which is itself genetic. So we 
have to create the Point and then make it creative, 
so that of itself it moves out of itself and creates 
the Line. 

Thus the Point is subjective, is our own, 
filled with the creativity of the Ego, which can 
negate all extension or externality, yet external- 
izes this very act. Hence the Point is said to 
have position, which cannot mean that it has a 
real place or locality in space, but is simply the 
act of negating all externalty made external — 
all of which can only be the work of the Ego. 



264 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

So the Ego may for the nonce be deemed a Point 
which is self-active, self -separating, projecting 
itself into another Point which is itself as object. 
We have now reached the Surface as created, 
being the product of the Point, wherewith this 
second stage of the present process is brought to 
a conclusion. But the Surface is not merely 
created, but also creative, having in itself the 
genetic energy of the Point, its origin. This, 
however, constitutes a new departure. 

III. The Return to the Surface producing 
THE Solid. — We must here distinguish between 
the Surface as the product of the Point, and the 
Surface as producing Concrete Magnitude, thus 
movino^ out of Abstract Mao^nitude. 

When we reach the Surface it is manifest that 
we have returned to the beo-innins^ of the Gifts 
of Abstract Magnitude. This return completes 
the psychical movement of the present stage 
(Abstract Magnitude), which has shown its 
triple process. The Point (Tenth Gift) returns 
and connects with the Surface (Seventh Gift). 

But the Surface now reached is no longer the 
first immediate Surface with Avhich we started, 
when it was obtained by simple separation or 
abstraction. It has within itself the genetic 
element won by the Point, from which it has 
been produced by an inward i^rooess. So it must 
proceed at once to bring forth the Solid, for the 



FBOEBEUS PL A Y GIFTS.— THE POINT. 265 

Surface now has the Point within itseK as self- 
separating, and thus projects itself out of the 
abstract into the concrete. 

We may note in the present connection that 
the three dimensions have been reproduced from 
the Point, which first unfolded into the Line 
(length), then this Line unfolded into Surface 
(length and breadth), and finally this Surface 
has unfolded into the Solid (length, breadth, 
and thickness). 

The child will easily and of himself play this 
transition from Surface to Solid. He will make 
a fence out of his sticks for holding his seeds, 
as a farmer makes a bin for his wheat or potatoes. 
Or he may pile up his seeds, transforming the 
Surface into the Solid. He can thus construct a 
Cube or cuboidal figure, and suggest the begin- 
ning of the Building Gifts. 

But having gone back to the Solid, it is mani- 
fest that we have moved out of the Gifts of Ab- 
stract Magnitude. They took for granted the 
Solid, from which they were abstracted; but 
having swept onward to the Point, they whirled 
about and have produced the Solid which was 
their pre-supposition in the first place. 

Looking back at the Gifts of Abstract Mag- 
nitude, we note the Psychosis. First was the 
simple, passive separation from the outside, yet 
by the mind ; second was the inner separation, 
which gave movement, and showed the active 



2()6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

8e})aration ; third is the retiiru to the Surface, 
the first abstraction, 3^et no^y through the Point, 
and with the creativity of the Point, which gen- 
etically passes to the Solid, the next matter to 
be considered. 

C. Fko:m Abstract back to Concrete Mag- 
nitude. — "When the Surface has moved into the 
Solid, we have returned to the Cube, the begin- 
ning of the Buildimr Gifts. This means that we 
have really produced the Derived Gifts, which 
start with the Gifts of Concrete Magnitude. 
From the Point we have derived Derivation, 
throuo^h the o^enetic movement alreadv mentioned. 

The previous process of abstraction was the 
mental separation of Surface, Line, Point, from 
the given Solid, but now we have returned from 
the Point, which we have found to be the central 
creative principle, and we ha\'e produced the 
Solid, with which the start was made. 

Froebel repeatedly puts stress upon this return 
from the Point. The Solid has been " separated 
into Surface, Line and Point, which is its com- 
plete dissolution," yet this dissolution is not 
destruction but rather *'the spiritualization of 
the material body," which must be the beginning 
of its genetic power. For this whole movement 
is like *' the development of a tree out of the 
seed into trunk, branch, twig, leaf, flower, pistil 
and pollen," which last is the division to very 



FEOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS— THE POINT. 267 

powder, yet also the beginning of the return, of 
the generative process. " Hence we must now 
in the opposite yet like manner go back to the 
first unity by bringing together and unifying ' ' 
what has before been given in separation. 
{Lange, II. 575; Miss Jarvis, II. 333.) 

In the same passage Froebel gives an illustra- 
tion of how this transition from extreme division 
and separation back to collection and unification 
may be shown. The child sticks pins in a pin- 
cushion, whereby he finds the Points (now the 
pin-heads) uniting into a Line and then into 
a Surface. This is a phase of the return of 
which we have been speaking, and is the deep 
demand of the child's own Ego for completion. 
Froebel says: '* Full of expression, collecting, 
unifying the spirit is the conjoining movement 
from Points to Lines, and from these again to 
formation." Soul-satisfying it is to the child, 
because it completes that soul's process, and leaves 
it not in distracted fragments. Especially in 
the Occupations will this movement be repeated 
in numerous varieties. 

In another passage {Lange, II. 345; Miss 
Jarvis, II. 45, 46) Froebel speaks of all educa- 
tion as proceeding from a Point which has within 
itself the mentioned genetic power, being the 
" Point of germination." Training by develop- 
ment" recognizes thisPoint " as filled with all the 
child's future unfolding, *' as the starting-point 



268 THE FSYCHOLOGY OF 

and source of all true education," as carrjdng 
potentially within itself " the limitations, cause, 
and laws ' ' of all the succeeding manifestations of 
the spirit. Thus Froebel uses the Point as a kind 
of counterpart of the Ego itself, and makes it 
the bearer, metaphorically at least, of the child's 
development. 

We must see, therefore, that the Point is at 
last the Point of Eeturn ; it is the axis upon 
Avhich the processes of the Gifts of Abstract 
Magnitude turn about and reproduce the Gifts of 
Concrete Magnitude. The Point has such gene- 
rative energy, which, however, is not going to 
stop with the Gifts of Concrete Magnitude, but 
will complete the Eeturn to the very beginning. 

It is plain that we have come back to the 
Derived Gifts, Avhich began with the Cube. 
From this followed the movement of Derivation 
till the Point was reached, which in one sense is 
derived, but in the other and deeper sense creates 
itself — that is, separates itseK and projects 
itself into the Line, Surface, Sohd. Such is the 
whirl back, in wliich Derivation derives itself 
and so is Origination. Or the Derived Gifts have 
reached back to the Originative Gift in this 
return to their fountain head. 

We have already named the Second Gift — 
Sphere, Cube, and Cylinder — the Originative 
Gift, since from it were derived the other Gifts. 
But it has begotten a child which is also orgi- 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE POINT, 269 

native like itself, and has come back seekino- its 
origin. The Point, which was itself derived, 
has now become the source of derivation ; thus 
the stream turns back to its own head waters 
(say through the clouds) and furnishes its own 
supply. 



III. 

THE RETURlSr TO THE ORIGIIS^ATIYE GIFT. 

Such is the final step now to be taken in this 
series of Eeturns which, however, constitute one 
srancl Eeturn from Point to Point . 

Previously we reached the Derived Gifts in 
our journey back to their origin ; but all deriva- 
tion points to origination, and so our journey was 
not then complete. Accordingly we pass from 
the Derived Gifts, which start with the Third 
Gift, to the Second Gift, which has been already 
designated as originative. There we interhnk 
the end of the chain with the beginning, and the 
cycle of the Quantitative Gifts is complete. 

The Return, therefore, sweeps from Point to 
Point; that is, from the Point as explicit, free, 
genetic, back to the Point as implicit, undevel- 
(270) 



FROEBEVS PLAY GIFTS,— THE POINT. 271 

oped, potential, lying unborn in the heart of the 
Sphere, yet lustily struggling for birth. Thus 
the Point has generated itself, namely, the Point, 
which in its turn is self -generating. In a similar 
way, the acorn generates, through the vegetable 
process, the acorn which is also acorn-generat- 
ing- 

What have we gained by the movement? 
Gained all — gained our starting-point and its 
complete cycle of derivation. That implicit 
Point in the Sphere, with its whole creative 
energy we took for granted as our point of de- 
parture ; whence did it come? We have found 
that it unfolds a Point which is not only genera- 
tive, but self -generative, when conceived in its 
total sweep. Thus the Point has wheeled back 
and created its own starting-point, with which 
we began the process of the Gifts. That which 
was taken for granted is now proved, that which 
was immediate is now mediated, that which gen- 
erated all the Gifts is now generated itself; the 
fiat of creation is itself created, the creator has 
created the creator, the producer has produced 
that which produces him. 

The student may well contemplate this return 
to the Originative Gift (the Second) out of the 
Derived Series in his best thinkino- mood, 
for it IS important, and not easy, and needs to be 
carefully considered. We have just seen how the 
Point being the culmination of the Derived Gifts, 



272 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

becomes in its turn originative, generating the 
Line, Surface, Solid, and thence passing to the 
Sphere, the starting-point of the Quantitative 
Gifts, in fact of the entire series of Gifts and 
Occupations. Such is, then, the movement: 
the Originative once passed into the Derived, but 
the Derived has now passed back into the Origi- 
native, thus completing the cycle of the present 
series. 

So we have come back to the central generative 
Point of the Sphere, with which we started the 
Second Gift and the Quantitative Series. But we 
have won a great experience in the process. We 
now know that this central Point, generating pri- 
marily the periphery of the Sphere, is the genetic 
principle out of which develops all geometric forms 
controlling Nature, and out of which comes the 
science of Mathematics in some of its most 
important aspects. The Point has gone through 
a whole series of incarnations, and has finally 
reproduced itself, or, we may say, the Sphere has 
created itself. The Ego has found the ideal 
center which is self -creative, or at least images 
the same; next it must make this generative 
principle a fact, which it aa^II do in the Occupa- 
tions or Qualitative Gifts. The Ego, having 
made the Sphere create itself ideally, must 
itself now create the Sphere really, putting 
it into a material shape. In this case the form 
is not merely given from the outside, but is 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE POINT. 273 

molded through its inner qualities; in other 
words the material in the Occupations must be 
transformed, since the central Point of the 
Gifts is now creative of Form. 

It is true that we (the kindergardner) gene- 
rated ideally all the Quantitative Gifts, but the 
child has had them given to him in material 
shape ; now, however, he must produce or rather 
reproduce them. 

Through giving to the child the Quantitative 
Gifts and having him go through their process, 
we have led him back to their creative source. 
When he reached the Point and saw it embodied 
in some object, and there laid the material Points 
together and formed a Line, and in like manner 
moved through the Surface into the Solid, he 
was getting the genetic Idea of the Gifts, he was 
changing from being the recipient of Form to 
the producer of Form. 

The unseen center of the Sphere can be em- 
bodied, and thus seen by the child, so that the 
invisible creative Point is susffifested. The round 
disc of Points with the Point at the center may 
suffice ; but an orange cut in two will show in 
Nature the creative principle, the seed at the cen- 
ter, which may be taken as an embodied Point. 
That orange seed is the generative real Point 
which also reproduces itself through the process 
of Nature, as the return into itself. 

The mind of the child through the discipline 

18 



274 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

of tlie cycle of the Gifts lias won its ideal start- 
ing-point, and can now begin to generate that 
which at first it simply took for granted. Its 
next step is to produce what has been given to 
it, and to participate in the deepest principle of 
the educative process. Through the training 
which lies in the inner movement of these Gifts, 
the child has unfolded the germ of productivity 
itself, and is getting ready to go forth as the 
master of the material world. 

And the child has specially gotten hold of the 
inner controlling principle of the Sphere, its 
essential quality, which he can now use for his 
own end. He can reproduce the Sphere in any 
pliable material, as clay or wax, for he is in pos- 
session of its creative thought — and so we are 
ready to pass to the Eeproductive Gifts (Occu- 
pations). 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE POINT. 21b 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRECEDING MOVEMENT. 

1. The problem about numbering the Gifts 
comes up to every careful student for solution. 
As already said, we claim no right to settle this 
matter. But we may contribute our opinion 
along with other persons interesled in the cause. 
It is our judgment that the first six Gifts should 
not be tampered with ; let their numerical desig- 
nation remain as Froebel o^ave it in the beo^inninff. 
The following Gifts we would number in this 
way:— 

Seventh Gift — The curvilinear Gift. 

Eighth Gift — The Surface (tablel^s). 

Ninth Gift — The Line (sticks and rings). 

Tenth Gift— The Point (seeds, etc.). 

In several manuals the last two desio^nations 
are already employed. The Seventh and the 
Eighth would be the chief changes from the 
present numbering of the Gifts. 

This method would be clear and logically 
adapted to the subject-matter. For it is illogical 
and confusing to give two numbers to the Line, 
as is now done, and only one to the Surface, the 
latter being also a much larger Gift. We may 
well feel a propriety in making the Point the 



276 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Tenth Gift. For ten is the end and the return 
of the decimal system to its beginning; 10 goes 
back to 1 , and also has a sign of its own ; ten 
has thus an inner correspondence with the Point, 
and m a deo:ree suo^sfests its character. Such 
congruences, we hold, have their meaning 
and educative influence; they are to be disre- 
garded in the presence of weightier matters, but 
otherwise should be taken into the account. Let, 
then, the Point, which turns back to its begin- 
ning in order to go forward, be designated by 
that number in the system of numbers, which 
also turns back to its beginning in order to go 
forward. 

2. The student may be at first somewhat con- 
fused by the quantity of the foregoing Returns, 
each of which is the third stage of the Psychosis 
and closes a special process, the whole of which 
then makes a transition to an antecedent, more 
comprehensive process. 

The three Returns here set forth we shall 
recapitulate in their order and try to designate 
them more briefly and sharply. 

First. When the Point produces through the 
Line the Surface, there is the Return from the 
Tenth to the Seventh Gifts, from the seeds 
(Points) to the tablets (Surfaces), from the end 
of Abstract Magnitude to the starting-point, 
which movement constitutes the cycle of the 
Gifts of Abstract Magnitude. 



FB OEBEU S PLAT GIFTS. - THE POINT. 277 

Second. When the Surface through its genetic 
energy moves into the Solid, there is the return 
from the Seventh to the Third Gift, or we may 
say, to the Cube and Cylinder of the Second 
Gift as derived forms. It is the Eeturn from 
Abstract to Concrete Magnitude, and makes the 
Cycle of the included Gifts, or the totahty of 
the Derived Gifts. 

Third. The final Return is that from Cube 
and Cylinder to Sphere and Point of the Second 
Gift, which completes the cycle of the Quanti- 
tative Gifts, showing the Point proceeding from 
and then returning to the Point. 

These three Returns are, however, but steps 
of one great Return. Still these steps should be 
carefully noted, as they constitute the connect- 
ing links of the different cycles of the Gifts to 
which they separately belong. Moreover they, 
each and all, are necessary to show the psycholog- 
ical process which underlies and organizes these 
Gifts. The Psychosis, the inner process of the 
Ego itself, is the creative principle of them, and 
is that which makes them educative in the deep- 
est sense of the word. The child's Ego, poten- 
tial, implicit, slumbering, is unfolded into reality 
and awakened to take possession of itself and of 
the world through the inherent psychical move- 
ment of these Gifts. 

3. We may thus behold three cycles in this 
quantitative series of Gifts, one within the other, 



278 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

till the central Point is reached (in fact we can 
in a way count four cycles). Here is again sug- 
gested the principle of concentrism, as the final 
outcome of the whole process. This, however, 
is an inner, spiritual concentrism, which is based 
on the return through the Point. Such return in- 
tegrates the missing link in the three cycles before 
mentioned, making the same complete in them- 
selves, 3^et an organic part of the total movement 
of the Gifts. (See table.) 

Already we had the outer manifestation of 
concentrism in the Second Gift, where it showed 
itself in a number of shapes, as in the concentric 
forms of Sphere, Cube, and Cylinder. Concen- 
trism repeated itself in the Surface and in the 
Line ; thus it has accompanied us throughout the 
entire development of the quantitative Gifts. 
Such is what we call its symbolic appearance, its 
manifestation in outward shapes, which, however, 
suggest and carry the soul into the inward mean- 
ing. This suggestiveness of concentric shapes, 
whether spherical, circular, or rectilineal, has 
been already emphasized as giving the idea of 
completeness, of a self -returning totality, of the 
movement of all things outward from, and in- 
ward to, the central creative Point or Source. 

But now these external forms of concentrism 
are seen to foreshadow the inner character and 
movement of the totality of tlic (juantitative Gifts, 
which also show essentially three self-returning 



FBOEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— THE POINT. 279 

cycles which are to be grasped through an inward 
representation. Here again tripUcity makes itself 
valid. 

4. This seems to be the best place for insert- 
ing a tabular statement of the entire series of the 
quantitative Gifts. The student can see at a 
glance all the divisions through which she has 
been moving in the foregoing exposition, and also 
their relation to one another and to the whole. 
Process within process is shown by the order ; 
the threefold movement is seen to be the unifying 
principle in the largest as well as in the smallest 
portion. Wheel within wheel like intricate clock- 
work, yet all of it moving separately and together 
in harmony ; the clock-work of the soul we may 
name it, just now, into which you look as through 
a transparent crystal covering. The child-soul is 
unfolding itself by playing with these Gifts, 
which also have a soul and its movement, thouo-h 
externalized in material objects. Let the student 
contemplate this concentrated epitome of all that 
has gone before and take it up within, identify- 
ing the same with her own Ego and its processes. 
For the soul of this tabular diagram is just the 
Psychosis, which is hkewise her own soul's form 
and movement. 

Let her trace in the table and at the same time 
assimilate in her thought the three grand Returns 
through the Point as seen in the divisions of the 
quantitative Gifts, since they are here indicated 



280 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 



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FB0EBEU8 PLAT GIFTS,— THE POINT. 281 

outwardly by number and word, which, however, 
are not merely to be memorized, but are to be 
re-created by the thinking Ego. 

5. The attempt of man to return to his origin, 
to the first fountains of his being, has been cele- 
brated in many ways. The hero of Northern 
legend, Sigfried, goes through his marvelous 
career and does his memorable deeds in the 
search to find out whence he sprang. Oedipus, 
in Greek story, must discover who were his 
parents in spite of the warning of the Oracle : 
** Mayst thou never know the truth of what thou 
art! " Still he has to know, and know himself, 
though fate smite him for his knowledge. The 
Bibles of the world try to tell to man, their 
follower, the nature of his origin and the very 
period of his creation. In a more daring spirit 
Hesiod unfolds the origin of the Gods themselves, 
the rulers and creators of man. 

Strange to say, modern science has herein 
trodden in the footsteps of the old Mythus, 
which gives always some prophetic forecast of 
the future. Darwin is our latest hero, who has 
gone in search of the *' Origin of the Species," 
really the Origin of the Human Species, and 
brought back Evolution, not simply of the spirit 
(which was known and believed before) but em- 
bodied in living forms, made visible in organisms. 
Nature's organic development has been incarnated 
by Darwin in his epos of our modern age, some- 



282 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

what as Nature's inorganic development has been 
embodied by Froebel in tliese plaj^-gifts for the 
little child. Like the descent and the ascent of 
the Point, so we are served to the descent and 
the ascent of man himself, in a line of re-incar- 
nations from the beginning, showing an inner 
transforming power which clothes itself in an 
ordered succession of external living shapes. 

The most colossal image of this self -return is 
found in Northern Mythology, w^hich tells of the 
huge earth-serpent coiled around the w^hole ter- 
raqueous globe, and holding up the same in its 
circular fold by putting its tail into its mouth. 
Thus is our earth supported from falling into 
everlasting chaos, and held in its orbit of light 
by a self -returning cj'cle or perchance by several 
of them, as that serpent may have been long 
enough to have reached around the globe two or 
three times. Why not? Thus we may behold 
in it also a kind of Mythus of Concentrism. 

6. Deeply implanted in the human soul is the 
idea of the Eeturn, Avhich has its })lace in relig- 
ion also and expresses itself in the faith and hope 
of a return to the Divine Source. ]\Ian's destiny 
is to return to God, his Creator; he works, 
develops more and more, makes real his possi- 
bilties, yet the end is the getting back to the foun- 
tainhead. All religions make some attempt to 
embody in rite or to ex})ress in creed this infinite 
longing of the human heart, whose deepest aspir- 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE POINT. 283 

ation is "to see God,'' the creative Point of 
the great Ball whose periphery is the Universe. 
Thus our mortal journey is a going which also is 
a returning, or at least has in it the Eeturn to 
the Primal Source as the very soul of its pro- 
gress. Already we have seen the rectilineal 
passing into the curvilineal as its higher stage, 
in order that it may return into itself. 

7. It will be recollected by the student of 
Dante that when the poet in his descent comes 
to the central Point of the earth-ball, he has to 
whirl about, he makes the grand turn, placing 
his head where his feet were before, ere he can 
begin the ascent, the movement upwards which 
is for him the Eeturn. In order to emphasize 
its meaning, he stops to bid the reader think 
' ' what a point it was that I turned ! ' ' For 
Dante it was indeed the turning-point out of the 
deepest depth of the Inferno, to which hitherto 
had been his descent, but now came the ascent. 
Thus the mighty imagination of the world-poet 
has seized upon the globe itself as his BaU with 
its central Point, using the latter as the turning- 
point in the weightest of all human matters, 
namely the Eeturn from Evil to Good, from 
Hell to Heaven, from Satan to God. 

8. Froebel has given us a glimpse of the re- 
turning movement which was in his mind con- 
nected with stick-laying, a favorite play-gift of 
his. He notices how the Cube unfolds out of 



284 TEE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

the Sphere, and continues its development to the 
sticks; then how the latter pass back to the 
Sphere as their source. He claims stick-laying 
to be an educative means which has both these 
movements in it, the descending and the ascend- 
ing (^ahwdrts vom Stdbclien his zur Kugel, und 
auf warts von der Kugel his zum 8tdhchen. 
See the passage in Lange^ II. 392; translation 
by Miss Jarvis^ II. 123) . Hardly more than this 
do we find anywhere in Froebel, that is, in the 
formulated statements of his procedure. The 
Eeturn in its full sweep and bearing seems never 
to have been developed by him, though he has 
fitful flashes of it in a number of places. Already 
we have cited a sisfnificant orleam of his touchino: 
the return from the Point. 

Froebel sees the process of his play-gifts most 
distinctly under the form of an image taken from 
veo^etable nature. Over and over ao^ain he re- 
curs to such an image for their illustration. In 
the essay on stick-laying just alluded to he con- 
siders *' the Ball to be a flower-bud, which, when 
it blossoms, develops a multitude of stamens and 
pistils," which are linear chiefly. So he con- 
nects organically the Ball or Sphere with the 
sticks as lines. 

9. But the most suggestive point of Return as 
witnessed in vegetable nature, is the seed, the 
true representative and embodiment of the Point. 
The apple is a Sphere which is determined by 



FBOEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS— TEE POINT. 285 

the seed at the center, or the central Pomt. The 
apple unfolds from the seed, yet produces the 
seed as its end, the genetic part of itself, since 
the pulp of the apple exists to protect and to feed 
this reproductive element of itself. Such is the 
vegetable cycle already alluded to, with its des- 
cent on the one side and its ascent on the other. 
The animal cycle of generation has a similar pro- 
cess, though more concealed. 

Surrounding the seed or in the seed itself is 
what largely sustains the life of animate creation. 
Man lives chiefly on seeds (cereals or nuts) and 
what envelops the seeds (fruit) ; that which re- 
produces the vegetable body through nature's vast 
digestive organs, reproduces his body through 
his inner apparatus for digestion. The little 
child, eating the apple, finds at its center the 
seed which is to produce the tree, and the tree is 
to produce the apple with its seed at the center. 
Thus the child actually lives in and through the 
vegetable cycle, which thereby develops his 
body; but he must see that cycle as a whole, 
which thereby develops, calls forth, educates his 
mind. 

In the vegetable world, accordingly, we can 
behold both an inner and outer concentrism, as 
well as the suggested movement from the Point 
through Line, Surface, Solid, back to Point. 
There is, first, in the apple-tree an outer concen- 
trism seen in its annual concentric layers of 



286 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

wood. Secondly there is the inner concentrism 
or rather cycle, also annual, which we have 
already traced from seed to seed, involving the 
entire vegetable process. The Point (as seed) 
shoots into Lines (stem, branch, trunk) and even 
into Surfaces (leaves thousandfold), and also 
into the Solid of many kinds, producing them all 
on its creative journey back (or forward) to the 
Point (as seed), embodying in its forms the full 
sweep of both Abstract and Concrete Magnitudes. 
Legend, too, has been busy with the seed, yea 
with the apple-seed, and has even given to a man 
the name of Apple-seed, with a kind of romantic, 
whimsical, yet symbolic turn of its many-hued 
kaleidoscope. This human Apple-seed had the 
inveterate habit of wandering about and planting 
apple-seeds, that is, himself, throughout the 
Mississippi Yallev, where the Popular Tale has 
picked him up and keeps him alive and going 
still in an everlasting play-gift of planting apple- 
seeds, which children imitate in the kindergarden. 
Also he sang at his work, like the child, who 
sings into himself the deep germ of all growth 
just in his play. So little Johnny Apple-seed 
had his little play-song, even as Froebelhad, and 
Homer too, for that matter. One of his songs 
we shall here set down, and therewith bring to a 
tiny musical close the present chapter. 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE POINT. 287 

I love to plant a little seed 

Whose fruit I never see; 
Some hungry stranger it will feed, 

When it becomes a tree. 

I love to sing a little song 

Whose words attune the day, 
And round me see the children throng 

When I begin to play. 

So I can never lonely be 

Although I am alone, 
I think the future apple tree 

Which helps the man unknown 

I sing my heart into the air, 

And plact ray way with seed, 
The song sends music everywhere, 

The tree will tell my deed. 



CHAPTER THIRD. 



THE OCCUPATIOXS. 



Through the discipline of the Gifts, the mind 
of the child has won its ideal starting-point ; he 
has generated through the Point what he took 
for granted in the beginning ; what was given 
him at first, he has now produced ; out of deriva- 
tion he has developed into origination. Moving 
with the process of the Gifts, he has become pro- 
ductive, creative; he has reached the inner, cen- 
tral, o'cnetic Pohit out of Avhich unfolds the ex- 
ternal material world ; from the quantitative or 
extensive principle he has passed to the qualitative 
or intensive. Or, we can say, from the recipient 
of Form in the (iifts he has unfolded into the 
producer of Form in the Occupations. 
(288) 



FBOEBEU S PL A Y GIFTS.— OCC UFA TIONS. 289 

So the return from the Pomt to the Point 
means not only the closing of the cycle of the 
Gifts, but also the opening of the cycle of the 
Occupations. And this means not only the outer 
combination of what was already given, but also 
the inner transformation of it throuo;h its 
properties. 

In the system of Play-gifts as a whole, we 
have already designated three grand sweeps or 
movements, of which we have now reached the 
third. This embraces what is usually called the 
Occupations — a term Avhich has become so fully 
entrenched in the minds of kindergardners that 
it will have to be retained. To be sure, all these 
Play-gifts are occupations of the child, and often 
so called by Froebel himself, inasmuch as they 
occupy the child and furnish means of employ- 
ment. 

If, however, we wish to connect this third 
stage with the preceding one, and at the same 
time designate the difference between the two, 
we may call these the Qualitative Play-gifts, while 
the former are the Quantitative Play-gifts. The 
reason for such a designation will, we hope, be 
made clear from the following exposition. 

It will be well to recall at this point the first 
stage also, the First Play-gift — the six Balls — 
which was named the Potential Gift, as contain- 
ing implicitly all the rest. So we must expect 
in this third stage, that many things which were 

19 



290 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

hinted, intimated, suggested but not developed 
in the first stage, will now be brought out, made 
explicit in thought and given a name. The First 
Gift was also qualitative, hence we observe a re- 
turn to it — which fact already points to the 
psychical process underlying the total sweep of 
the Play -gifts. 

The question which is or ought to be upper- 
most in the mind of the student at this point is, 
"What is the distinction between the second and 
third stages? Or, to put the same question in 
its ordinary form: What is the difference be- 
tween the Gifts and the Occupations? 

1. In the Occupations the child begins to deal 
with the inner, intensive, physical qualities of 
matter while in the Gifts he deals with the outer, 
extensive, mechanical relations of matter. When 
he perforates a piece of paper with a needle, or 
even dots it with a lead pencil, he is testing it, 
and is discoverino^ throufi^h his test the inner 
quahty or property of the object, say its pentra- 
bility or its tenacity. We call it an inner quality 
of the object, for he cannot see it or feel it 
directly; he has to test it by some sort of 
attack upon it, and then see or hear its response 
to his attack, he has to assail its individuality 
and make it show its mettle, its inner character — 
and this is the quality of which we speak. We 
can see in peace the extensive nature or form 
of a piece of matter, but we can find out its 



PR EBEL 'S PLAY GIF TS—OCC UFA TIONS. 291 

intensive nature or quality only through a 
fight. 

So the child opens his battle with all creation 
or at least with all nature, for he must know the 
inner quality of eyerj^thing in his enyironment 
before he can be master. Let us now compare 
how he proceeds in the Gifts. He does not as- 
sail the Cubes or the Bricks in building ; he puts 
them on top of one another, he combines them 
outwardly into some form, he does not attack 
them inwardly for some quality of theirs which 
he wishes to get at and to employ for his own 
purpose. 

In the Gifts combination is the word and the 
fact, either by way of superposition or juxtapo- 
sition ; in the Occupations transformation is the 
word and the fact, or inner change of the ma- 
terial, whereby its quality is manifested. 

Such is the first emphatic distinction. Yet 
this we must see aright and not in excess. There 
is no denying that the Gifts — Ball, Cube and 
the rest — have also inner qualities of matter. 
They have hardness, impenetrability, a degree of 
elasticity, etc. And one quality of matter, the 
most universal, namely, gravity, has of necessity 
to be taken into account, in the Building Gifts. 
Yet even here gravity, though always present, is 
not explicit except in a few of the more compli- 
cated forms. The stress in these Gifts is upon 
the quantitative element, form, number and 



292 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

measure — Geometry, Arithmetic and ]\Iensura- 
tion. The qualitative element recedes into the 
background till brought to the front in the Occu- 
pations. 

Elasticity is an inner quality of matter, not 
apparent till tested. When the elastic Ball is 
thrown against the floor, it rebounds, it asserts 
itself after being assailed, thus showing its inner 
quality. The Ball of the First Gift is rightly 
made elastic, this Gift being qualitative; but tbe 
Ball of the Second Gift starts the quantitative 
series and hence is indifferent to quality, as far 
as thought is concerned, though its material must 
undoubtedly show certain qualities. Hence not 
too much stress is to be placed upon the hard- 
ness of the second Ball, as is often done b}^ kinder- 
gardners. The hardness or softness of the 
second Ball (or Sphere) really cuts no figure in 
the quantitative series ; nobody ever speaks of it 
or thinks of it afterwards, in the course of these 
Gifts. It is true that Froebel sets the example 
in the present instance, but that example, we 
have agreed, is to be rationally followed, not 
always literally. And the rational ground of his 
quantitative Gifts must make them quite indiffer- 
ent to the qualitative element. 

In the Occupations, therefore, the child begins 
that great conquest of Nature through investi- 
gating and utilizing her inner qualities, which is 
the })eculiar function of our own time. He 



FBOEBEUS FLAY GIFTS.— OCCUPATIONS. 293 

pries into her secrets literally, using some kind of 
a pry — a knife, a pin, a needle, or, it may be, 
merely his hand. And this brings us to the next 
chief difference between the present and the 
preceding stage — the implement. 

2 . In the Occupations the child is to be intro- 
duced to the use of implements. In the Gifts, 
which require only external combination, he 
can get along with his hand alone. But now 
he must enter into the heart of the object, he 
must overcome its resistance by new means, he 
needs something more than hand, finger, or 
finger-nail. He has to have a tool, which is a 
kind of specialized or intensified hand made to 
grip this and that shape of Nature in its very 
vitals. 

The simple hand has in the tool a means or 
medium which works between itseK and the 
object; a mediating principle lies in the tool, 
which is to mediate the grand opposition between 
Man and Nature. The tool which is turned upon 
the physical object with a certain quality is itself 
a physical object with a certain quality ; thus 
Man directs Nature against Nature and thereby 
subjects her through herself as embodied in the 
implement. Or, we may say that Man, having 
investigated and discovered the relative qualities 
of Nature, turns the stronger quality against 
the weaker and thereby triumphs. The tool is, 
it may be said, the primal military weapon by 



294 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

the aid of which the human being is to win and 
to secure his freedom against the overwhehning 
power of external Nature. The child is to be 
trained in the use of the implement, and to begin 
his traiaiing early, for he needs it in his very 
first years. A kind of military discipline it is, 
and he a kind of soldier, exercising himself in 
the opening yet ever-enduring battle of life. 

Not without profound insight has man been 
defined as a tool-making animal. He seizes upon 
a quality of the physical object and turns it 
into his implement for mastering that refractory 
world surrounding him everj^where called Nature. 

But why does he wish to master her? Other- 
wise she masters him, she determines him, he is 
not free. 

Here we catch a glimpse of the grand ultimate 
end which man is seeking by the use of tools, 
namely, freedom. The great industrial age, and 
the great industrial peoples, those who make the 
most perfect tools, and who use them most per- 
fectly, are in the last view working for a higher 
liberty, and are realizing not only material wealth 
but also free institutions. The locomotive, the 
telegraph, the sewing-machine are the mightiest 
liberators of the human race that the earth has 
3'et seen; but they are simi)ly huge tools Avhich, 
once ])ut into the hands of man and woman, Avill 
sua}) the adamantine fetters of S])are, Time, and 
Matter, with which external Nature shackles every 



FBOEBEL'S PLAT GIFTS.—OCCUPATIONS. 295 

child born into the world . The tool is , therefore , 
an instrument of freedom, and every blow struck 
by the workman upon his steam engine is, in the 
final outlook of life, a blow for freedom. 

The child is to be trained to handle the tool 
as soon as he begins to show the need of it. In 
this way alone can he take possession of his 
spiritual heritage; through the tool he starts 
to become an active member of the wonderful 
industrial civiKzation which is the deepest 
fact of his epoch. We must not prolong 
his apprenticeship to the hand, though this 
be necessary at the beginning, for he must 
first get possession of his hand before he can 
use a tool. Still beyond a certain limit, hand- 
work becomes enslaving and pulls down the child, 
while tool-work is liberating, and draws him up- 
ward toward a more complete freedom. 

In the Occupations when he begins Dottino-, a 
pencil is put into his hand, which is a tool ; in Per- 
foration he must have some kind of a sharp tool 
and learn to use it with care, for he must find out 
that he can stick himself with the same weapon 
with which he sticks nature. This is a neces- 
sarj part of the training, and cannot be set aside ; 
still let there be no excess in exposing the child 
to danger. There is some danger in everything. 
It is dangerous to breathe, especially in the city, 
yet we cannot live without breathing; it is hazar- 
dous to open the eyes lest something get into 



296 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

them, still we cannot see at all unless we look. 
So the tool is dangerous, but the child might 
as well be unborn as not to learn the use of it, 
and thereby expose himself to some danger. 

We may note here the correspondence between 
the tool and its effect : the pointed pencil makes 
a point, the sharpened needle shows a correspond- 
ing puncture; the line of sharp points in the 
knife-blade produces the line in cutting the paper ; 
the brush is a kind of surface applied to sur- 
faces chiefly, and the paper knife requires sur- 
face, line or edge, and point to serve as an 
implement in folding. Thus the tool with its 
special quality makes its impress upon the object, 
whose refractory quality is thereby met and 
mastered. 

It is, therefore, a great mistake to forbid the 
child the use of the tool in the Occupations. It 
is worse, it is a wrong, since it hinders or delays 
him in taking possession of his inheritance as a 
member of our industrial civilization. It cripples 
him as a tool-user, and hence as a tool-maker; it 
rears a lame member of the social order, it sins 
against the spirit of the age. Yet the attempt 
has been made to banish, as far as possible, the 
tool from the Occupations and to throw the child 
back solely upon his hand. But the opposite 
doctrine is the true one : introduce the tool as 
much as he can use it to advantage. 

The point at which the tool should appear may 



FB0EBEU8 PLAY GIFTS. -OCCUPATIONS 297 

be stated : when the object can be made by the 
child more perfect through using the tool, the 
child must have it, and to keep it away from him 
is a mistake, yea a wrong. For the grand ideal 
of attainment is perfection, and to interfere with 
that is to strike at the root of all education, in- 
tellectual and moral. When the child can model 
his cube or his house a little better by means of 
a small modeling knife, it must be put into his 
hands; when he can fold his paper forms in a 
neater style with a paper-folder, let him have it 
in spite of any cast-iron rule to the contrary. 
For he is not merely to develop his hand, but 
chiefly is to develop perfection, whose ideal fleets 
before him and lures him onward. 

The answer is often made : But we must make 
the hand perfect first. Not by any means ; hand- 
training is not an end in itself, it is only a means. 
When the hand fails, the tool must be called for. 
In special vocations, like piano-playing or car- 
pentry, a special hand-training is necessary, but 
this does not hold in the Occupations, whose 
object is to make, not a piano-player or a car- 
penter, but a man, whose ideal is perfection. 
" Be ye perfect," is the diAdne injunction, placing 
the Divine itself as the ideal to be followed. 

Again we repeat that the culture of the hand 
frees the soul up to a certain point, but beyond 
that point enslaves it. There are hand-civiliza- 
tions and there are tool-civihzations, The Ori- 



298 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

entals chiefly belong to the former; we cannot 
compete with the Hindoos, the Chinese, or even 
the Arabians in the manual dexterity required in 
some of their fabrics. And if we of the Occident 
did train ourselves to such a competition, it would 
ruin us, it would enslave us. We use and make 
the tool, and the biggest kind of a tool, the 
machine, whose ultimate sacred end, we believe, 
is the freeing of man from the bonds of Nature. 
Among Oriental peoples we admire Japan, which 
is adopting the Occidental implement in its largest 
forms, and so is passing from a hand-civilization 
to a tool-civilization — certainly one of the great 
miracles of the modern world. 

Accordingly, in going from the Gifts to the 
Occupations the child begins to move out of mere 
hand- work to tool-work, and therein is marching 
on a line with the development of his race. 
' 3. We now come to the most important fact 
of the Occupations, indeed the one all-embracing 
fact of them, without which t\\Qy would have no 
real meaning. This essential fact is that the 
child must henceforth go back and reproduce for 
himself what has been given him ; he must make 
over anew what was previously made for him ; 
he must return upon his work, and the forms 
which he once received and combined he has now 
to produce through his own activity. 

So the child in the Occu})ati()ns goes ])ack and 
makes his Ball, his Cube, his Bricks, niid pro- 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— OCCUPATIONS. 299 

duces his own Points and Lines and Surfaces. 
Out of clay he can model quite all of the Build- 
ing Gifts and use them ; he not only combines 
externally, but transforms internally, through 
some inner quality, his material. Thus he begins 
to make his own presuppositions, and to create 
for himself what he before simply accepted ; he 
has opened his life's career of reconstructing 
what he once took for granted, and he cannot 
stop till he builds anew the old starting-point — 
and this not only outwardly but also inwardly, 
wherein lies the true educative value of the act. 

And here we must note again the real meaning 
of the word Gift in the present connection. It 
signifies something given, taken for granted, pre- 
supposed ; it thus represents the given world into 
which the child is born, and which determines 
him from every direction. This world is what he 
is to create over into his own and so possess ; thus 
he makes his own presupposition, he determines 
his own determinant, and thereby attains free- 
dom. 

Froebel's Gifts are not, therefore, merely little 
presents to the little child, with Avhich he may 
amuse himself, though they be all this too ; they 
stand for something far deeper, nothing less than 
the educative movement of the individual and of 
the race, into which the child is to be inducted 
through his play with these Play-gifts. For 
man moves back in order to move forward ; he 



300 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

must reach behind and take up into himself his 
presuppositions, his given world, in order to 
reach forward and grasp the precious boon, the 
end of all striving, freedom. 

Now, in the Occupations as here set forth, 
there is just this return to and reconstruction of 
what has been hitherto given in the Quantitative 
Gifts specially; the great realm of the extended, 
the spatial, in general, the realm of matter is 
transformed through its qualities into new quan- 
titative shapes by the child. Undoubtedly there 
is still in the Occupations something given, 
namely the material to be transformed ; so we 
may call them Gifts too, but of a different kind, 
namely, qualitative. 

Particularly, then, do the Quantitative Gifts 
represent the given element, which, however, has 
to be taken up by the child, learned, appropri- 
ated. They have been called the alphabet of 
form, showing first the total form or solid, and 
then proceeding to surface, line, and point. The 
child, having learned this alphabet, applies it to 
the reproduction of form in the Occupations. 
Just as he proceeds from the total word to 
syllable, letter, and sound, and then reconstructs 
them in speech in order to express himself, so 
he does here. He luis to get possession of the 
two alphabets, those of Form and of Speech, 
ere he can mould the silent yet soulful statue 
which is made of clay, or the speaking statue 



FE0EBEU8 PLAY GIFTS.— OCCUPATIONS. 301 

(so called by an old Greek philosopher) which 
is made of the word. Thus for his self -utter- 
ance, which is self-realization, he is laying under 
contribution two sense-worlds, those of sight 
and of sound. 

The Occupations, through this reproduction of 
material forms, introduce an industrial element; 
they connect closely with the useful arts of man- 
kind. Sewing, weaving, modehng, drawing are 
some of the Occupations, and have been employed 
from time immemorial by the race for the pro- 
duction of its fabrics . But , in the case of the child , 
their object is primarily educative, not utilitarian ; 
they are to develop the total man, not the 
weaver, the sempstress, the designer ; they are to 
unfold that potential Ego into the reality, thereby 
giving mastery over all externality and furnish- 
ing a free home on this earth. Herein the 
Occupations lead the little child toward the great 
end of education, which is the remaking by and 
for himself of the made world, transforming it 
into the abode of freedom. The grand destiny 
of industry and of industrial progress is to trans- 
shape outer material Nature into man's own forms, 
so that he beholds on all sides the image of him- 
self as a self-determined being, and dwells in a 
self -created universe, harmoniously realizing his 
divine nature. Thus he is returning to God, his 
creator and prototype, in the most profound re- 
ligious sense. 



302 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

And this activity of the child in the kinder- 
garden reaches out beyond his individual self into 
the social sphere of which he is a member. In 
remaking these fabrics above mentioned, he is 
also remaking the Industrial Order, of which 
they are part and product originally, he is re- 
producing the great social organism, making him- 
self a member thereof, and rebuilding it in his 
activity as it once built itself. Through these 
Occupations he becomes the little architect of 
society, which received him at his birth, but 
which he has to be eternally re-creating by his 
labor, that it be his own. 

Moreover, this pre-formed world of matter 
which surrounds and determines the child, and 
which he has to re-form, has another suggestion — 
that of his institutional relations — which must 
here be taken into account. In fact just the 
total movement of the Gifts and Occupations as 
already unfolded is a preparation for institutional 
life and a discipline in institutional virtue. As 
the child is born into a pre-established order of 
Nature, so he is born into a pre-established 
ethical order, that of Law and Institutions; and 
as he is to take up and make over the one, so he 
is to take up and make over the other, both unto 
the end of his higher freedom. Nay, in going 
through the process of the one, that of Nature, 
as unfokled in the Gifts and Occupations, he is 
developing in himself the process of the other, 



FROEBEUS PLAY GIFTS—OCCUPATIONS. 303 

he is becoming unconsciously institutional. 
Family, State, Society, Church are the pre- 
established institutional order into which he 
comes through birth, and which nourish him 
with their spiritual mother' s-milk during infancy. 
But this is not the end : he is to make them 
over, re-estabhsh, reproduce them; becoming a 
man, he is to recreate the Family in his 
own household; he is perpetually to renew 
the State, for he is the final law-maker; 
especially is he to preserve and reconstruct 
the Social Order in accord with the new 
time and the new idea ; nor let him forget the 
oldest of the old, the good grandmother of us 
all, the ChuTch, and add to her aged bones a 
breath of his regenerating spirit, for she needs it. 
It is, accordingly, the emphatic judgment of 
the educator, who has insight into his vocation, 
that these Gifts and Occupations transform the 
destructive spirit of the child into the construc- 
tive, and will make him a positive, not a negative 
being. The tender little soul is acquiring, 
through the habit of always re-forming the pre- 
formed in the realm of Nature, the far deeper 
habit of always re-establishing the pre-estabhshed 
in the realm of Spirit. He cannot rest in physical 
destruction nor in moral negation ; he becomes a 
builder, not merely of an outward structure, but 
of the inner temple of life. Such a person will 
not become the architect of ruin on the one hand. 



304 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

nor on the other an asphyxiated specimen of a 
soul stuck up somewhere in the museum of the 
past; neither stationary nor revolutionary, but 
evolutionary in the best sense ; neither a fetich- 
worshiper at the one extreme, nor a God-denier 
at the other, but an adorer of the Universal 
Spirit into whose unity with himself he is to rise 
in vision and in deed. 

On this career of spiritual return to his fountain 
head we start the child in the Occupations. He 
goes back and reshapes those forms which were 
first shaped for him and handed to him from 
the outside. It is a great beginning; he is the 
young Prometheus, not only the maker of out- 
ward forms of Nature, but the shaper of Man, 
the shaper of himself. For in this return and 
reconstruction of the previous Gifts, lurks the 
return and reconstruction of himself; once born, 
he is now being born again; once creator, he is 
now creating himself; in the eternal process of 
renewal and rejuvenation, he gets older and wiser 
and worthier. The days may whirl him onward 
in the time-stream, but he is always coming 
nearer to the everlasting source ; he is unfolding 
into his true selfhood in self-creative unity with 
the Divine. iSucli is the ever-active palingenesis, 
the never-ceasing regeneration of the spirit, which 
is the inner process of all education worthy of the 
name, as well as the deepest religious act of the 
soul. The new birth is everv dav, the child has 



FBOEBEU S FLA Y GIFTS.— OCC UFA TIONS, 305 

to go through it even in phiy; playing with 
material shapes, with blocks of Avood and lumps 
of clay, he is calling out his own soul, reshaping 
it, renewing it, moulding it into harmony with 
the divine order of the world. For the child to 
play the grand palingenesis of the soul, is a daring 
thought, appearing impious possibly at the first 
glance, yet it is just the deepest thought of 
Froebel, which he brings to the Mttle child in 
play by means of these Gifts. 

This reproduction is, then, the essential fact 
of the Occupations ; in them the child is repro- 
ducing himself as a member of the social order 
about him, and is also in his way reproducing 
that social order. Thus he is getting possession 
of the institutional world by creating it anew — 
which, indeed, is the final end of all education. 

Criticism, It is often said by kindergardners 
that the chief difference between the Gifts and 
the Occupations is that the former are to be 
put back into their boxes in the same condition 
in which they were taken out, wdiile in the Occu- 
pations the material is to keep the shape 
impressed upon it by the child. In the one case 
the forms are permanent, in the other transitory. 
Manifestly this distinction is not inherent, but 
external and accidental. With a little glue or 
paste the building-blocks can be made to stick 
together, and so employed for permanent forms; 

20 



306 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

while the material of the Occupations can often 
be restored vSufficiently after use that it may be 
employed again. The comparative cheapness 
and abundance of the Occupation material seem 
to be the main factors in determininfi: the given 
distinction. The forms of the Gifts are easily 
made permanent, and the forms of the Occupa- 
tions are easily made transitory ; thus the criterion 
readily reverses itself — which fact makes it no 
criterion, that is, no essential criterion. As auseful 
device in manipulation, the distinction may be 
stated, but not by any means as the creative, 
genetic thought which differentiates the Gifts and 
Occupations. 

So the given distinction does not distinguish, 
at least not in any vital sense. And this leads 
us to look into all the current distinctions in 
regard to the present subject, which, we have to 
think from our contact with kindergarden train- 
ing, needs a critical overhauling. 

It is important for the kindergardner to ex- 
amine the terms which have been in common use 
to designate the difference between the Gifts and 
the Occupations. One of the most valuable les- 
sons which the philosopher Kant has taught us is 
to criticise our categories — those fundamental 
words upon which our thought seems to repose 
as its final utterance. Something of this sort the 
student should attempt. 

It is often said that the Gifts are a means of 



PSOEBEL'S PLAT 0IFTS.-0CGUPATI01V8. 807 
impression, while the Occupations are a means 
of expression. But certainly when the child con- 
structs with the Buikling Gifts something of its 
own, these are a means of expression. Such 
may be, indeed, his best expression; if his bent 
be architectural, there will be a better expression 
m this way for him than in any Occupation. 

On the other hand, when the child models an 
object, say a Cube, all observers agree in sayino- 
that he receives a stronger and more exact imt 
pression.of that object than when he simply sees 
It or even builds with it. Modehng, therefore, 
IS a means of impression, one of the very best' 
probably better than any Gift, yet modeling is an 
Occupation in the kindergarden list. It takes 
but little testing to see that both the Gifts and 
Occupations are or can be a means of both ex- 
pression and impression. So we have to say that 
these terms (or categories) do not give the differ- 
ence sought for. 

Why then have they been used and reiterated 
m kindergarden training-classes aU over the 
world apparently? Undoubtedly an impression 
received from the Gifts, Hke that of the Cube 
may be modeled or drawn in the Occupations,' 
which fact is expression. But the opposite is 
also true; an impression may be and is expressed 
m the Gifts everywhere through its forms. And 
the same holds of the Occupations. So the 
time-honored distinction does not distinguish 



808 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Another statement often found in the manuals 
and repeated from mouth to mouth as a kind of 
Avonder-working formula, is that in the Gifts the 
child investigates^ while in the Occupations he 
creates. This, however, is less true than the 
preceding. Certainly every kindergardner calls 
for creative activity in the Gifts, be it in building, 
in stick-laying or in the manifold production of 
forms. And on the other hand if we are to use 
the inner qualities of matter in the Occupations, 
they require investigation in a deeper sense than 
the Gifts. Still we have to do both in both, just as 
in the last case, and the distinction does not hold. 
The same is true of a rather pretty antithesis 
which is sometimes given : the Gifts are a key to 
the outside world, the Occupations a door to the 
inside world. Let the student try, and see if 
both the key and the door do not fit both the 
Gifts and Occupations. Certainly the kinder- 
gardner would affirm that the Gifts are educative, 
that they unlock the inside world of the child 
quite as much as the outside world. 

But the favorite formulation of the above 
mentioned difference is that the Gifts are analytic 
and the Occupations synthetic. This statement 
is repeated in the manuals, being placed usually 
first, and is learned by heart as a kind of sacred 
infallil)le text which the student is to accept with- 
out (juestioning. But the kindergardner soon 
discovers, if slie thinks at all, that her practice 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS— OCCUPATIONS. 309 

contradicts the above distinction at every point. 
The very essence of the Building Gifts is that 
they are synthetic; to build is to put together. 
In the simplest of the Gifts, the third, the Cube 
is indeed divided, analyzed if you please, but 
only in order to be reunited, synthesized. It 
most deeply violates the spirit and the letter of 
Froebel to permit separation without restoration, 
and even to think analysis without synthesis. It 
may be declared unhesitatingly that every Gift 
has both analysis and synthesis, and has them 
not apart, but in a process which corresponds to 
that of mind, of the Ego. Indeed every Play- 
gift has to have such a process, else it would not 
be educative. 

When we come to the Occupations we find that 
they too are both analytic and synthetic. The 
attack upon a piece of paper by a needle or a 
knife is a divisive or analytic act, though it is 
usually the first thing the child does in the 
Occupations. The same ultimate process of the 
Ego is seen everywhere in the Occupations, 
though taking on new forms and imparting new 
lessons. 

One has sometimes to think that those who 
write books for kindergardners seem specially 
gifted in ridding themselves of all thought, which 
is indeed forever making trouble. We shall 
extract from a recent manual two propositions 
which follow each other directly : 



310 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

1. ''The Gifts are analytic, the Occupations 
synthetic." 

2. "In the Gifts there is combination, in the 
Occupations the material is transformed . ' ' That 
is, the Gifts show synthesis, the Occuptitions 
analysis, while in the previous proposition the 
statement ran just the other way. 

Such is an example of Froebel's law of oppo- 
sites, but with the mediation left out. Still the 
author of the cited statements has unconsciously 
told the truth : there are both analysis and 
synthesis in both the Gifts and Occupations. But 
the main question is. In what way? Not as an 
unreconciled contradiction, but as the living, 
self -harmonizing process of the Ego, as the 
Psychosis. 

So great has been the authority of this dis- 
tinction that the student may wish to hear a 
little bit of its history. It undoubtedly i)roceeds 
from Hermann Goldammer, whose kindergarden 
Manual stands in deservedly high repute, though 
in the present case we have to criticise its j^osi- 
tion. Goldammer takes a good deal of credit to 
himself for haviug ehiboratod this distinction 
(see his (JccKpitf ions of flic Ivindi r^iardc)} ^\). 10, 
Eng. trans. ), which, however, he chiims to derive 
from Froebel. But the passage in Froebel to 
which he alhides does not l)ear out his interpreta- 
tion. Froebel sp(\'iks of the rrffirn out of the 
stage of division which has given surface, line, 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— OCCUPATIONS. 311 

point, or the abstract magnitudes of the Gifts. 
This return to a whole can be indicated, he thinks, 
by putting together pin-heads on a cushion ; in 
this way we can see the point passing into the 
line, then the line inclosing a surface. The same 
thing can be shown by beads, etc. Such a pro- 
cedure, however, is hardly an Occupation, but a 
Gift ; the return Avhich Froebel speaks of must be, 
therefore, through the Gifts. Moreover, in the 
passage (wliich is quite fragmentary), Froebel 
makes no distinction between Gifts and Occupa- 
tions, not even in name. (See the passage in 
Lange's German edition of Froebel, Pddagogik 
des Kinder gai'tens, s. 575. A translation has 
appeared in Miss Jarvis' second volume Educa- 
tion by Development, pp. 332-4.) 

As far as we can see, therefore, Froebel does 
not make the distinction which Goldammer 
attributes to him. But supposing that he does, 
or supposing that we take Goldammer 's dis= 
tinction on its own merits, it still does not hold 
for all the Gifts and all the Occupations. The 
analytic principle would apply only to the point, 
line, and surface, or Gifts of abstract magnitude, 
which are not by any means all or even a fair 
half of the Gifts. On the other hand the syn- 
thetic principle would apply only to the industrial 
Occupations (such as sewing, pricking, weaving), 
which are not all of the Occupations. Hence 
Goldammer' s distinction seems inadequate when 



312 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

tested by a complete application to its subject- 
matter. 

Still the question will rise in the mind of the 
reader : Is there no ground at all for the univer- 
sal acceptance of these terms (analytic and 
synthetic) on the part of kindergardners ? So 
much may be granted : if by the term analytic 
the second or separate stage in the total process 
of the Gifts and Occupations is meant, then the 
Gifts (quantitative) may be called analytic. 
Some such meaning may vaguely lie in the mind 
of the writer, though no definition of the kind 
can be found in any manual. Still further, if 
by the term synthetic the third stage, which is 
the return and reproduction of what has gone 
before, is meant, then the Occupations may be 
called synthetic. Some such meaning may ha\'Te 
been felt in the word, but it certainly has not 
been expressed with any degree of definiteness. 
The fact, however, of such a return has been 
often declared, often by Froebel himself. But 
it is far-fetched to call it synthetic, to say the 
least. 

Such is our criticjue of the categories, or 
terms ordinarily used to express the difference 
between the Gifts and Occupations. They indi- 
cate no essential diiference, they liold true of one 
division as well as of the other, unless they be 
exi)laincd away into meaning something which 
they do not mean. Many kindergardners have 



FB0EBEU8 FLAY GIFTS.— OCCUPATIONS. 313 

already felt and expressed the futility of the 
mentioned distinctions ; still it would be a bad 
business to destroy even a poor foundation and 
leave nothing in its place. Hence our attempt 
to unfold a new set of distinctions, whose valid- 
ity is now to be tested by the kindergarden tri- 
bunal sitting in judgment. 

We must at this point return to the character- 
istic which we found to be the distinctive princi- 
ple of the Occupations, namely Eeproduction of 
the given, that is, of the Gifts. We are now 
ready to take an organic survey of the field which 
lies before us. Accordingly, in the ordering of 
the Occupations, we must employ the fact of the 
Eeproduction of the Gifts (quantitative) as the 
fundamental principle, and hence as that which 
organizes the subject-matter. On this line we 
shall note the triple movement. 

I. The Reproduction of Concrete Magnitudes 
immediately^ in their three dimensions — length, 
breadth, thickness. The preceding sohd Gifts, 
from the Second on, are to be reproduced in 
some formable material, such as clay or wax. 
Abstract Magnitudes (Surface, Line, Point) are 
present, but implicit, unseparated from their 
solids. 

Here is the place of Modeling, we may call it 
the Plastic Occupation. 

n. The Reproduction of Abstract Magiii- 
tudes — Point, Line, Surface — which are now 



314 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

explicit on the one hand, and on the other hand 
are connected with or wrought into other mate- 
rial things. 

Here lies distinctly the separative stage of the 
present sphere. In the first place, it reproduces 
the 'separative stage of the Derived Gifts, namely, 
the Abstract Magnitudes, which are not now given 
to the child, but are to be created by him in some 
wa3^ In the second place, the twofoldness be- 
comes manifest in the fact that the abstract (or 
ideal) forms — Point, Line, Surface — are to be 
made real, visible, nay, tangible in some material 
object; thus the abstract and the concrete (or 
the ideal and the real) are both present, though 
united. The great principle of the present sphere 
is that the Abstract Magnitudes, as thought or 
ideal, are the transforming power of the solid 
universe. Very profoundly, therefore, does the 
present stage reach back and connect with the 
corresponding stage in the Gifts. 

This is the realm of what is often called the 
Economic Arts, and so we may name them the 
Industrial Occupations, being many and manifold. 
The plural indicates their multiplicity, which, in- 
deed, springs from the separative character of 
the i)resent stage. 

///. The Reproduction of Concrete Magni- 
tudes in and throufjli the Atmtract Magnitudes — 
Surface^ Line ( Outline) aud Point. That is, 
the latter take up into themselves and reproduce 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— OCCUPATIONS. 315 

the solid object, which seems to have the three 
dimensions, but has not in reality. 

Here we have Drawing, which we name the 
Graphic Occupation. 

It is manifest that in these three sets of Occu- 
pations — the Plastic, the Industrial, and the 
Graphic — we have a Psychosis of Reproduction 
in this sphere. The first is immediate, in the 
material object; the second is separated, abstract, 
yet wrought into the material object ; the third 
is the return to the Concrete, which is now re- 
produced through the Abstract. 

We have made no attempt to arrange the 
various properties of matter which are brought 
out in the Occupations, such as elasticity, plia- 
bility, tenacity, etc. One of these properties, 
color, has a special place in the present division 
of the Play-Gifts. It is in one sense an outer 
visible property; still it is produced by an im- 
pingement of rays of Light upon a material 
object. Thus color also is the result of an assault 
upon matter, which thereby is made to reveal 
some inner quality of itself ; indeed color may be 
deemed the primary visible manifestation of the 
material world, showing something of its inner 
character by its outer Appearance in and through 
light. This property of matter also the child is 
to employ and to order in the Occupations. 



THE PLASTIC OCCUPATION. 

This occupation is usually called Modeling in 
the kindergarden. Often the name of the material 
is added, which is generally clay. The word 
])lastic suggests the formative character of the 
present Occupation, and connects it with Sculp- 
ture, which is supremely the Plastic Art and 
carries us back at once to ancient Greece, the 
home of the noblest statues. Sculpture takes 
the human shape in its material fullness, in its 
three dimensions, wliile Paiuting employs sur- 
face, line and point, or the Abstract Magnitudes. 

The Plastic Occupation, therefore, seizes and 

reproduces the material object i)nmediateh/, not 

as mediated through the Abstract Magnitudes 

already mentioned. Not every Oljject nuide in 

'(316) 



FB0EBEV8 PLAY GIFTS.— MODELING. 817 

clay belongs to Modeling in the sense here given ; 
a box molded out of clay is still a box. 

We place Modeling first among the Occupa- 
tions ( or Qualitativ^e Gifts ) , as it is the reproduc- 
tion of Concrete Magnitudes, that is, of forms 
which have the three dimensions, length, breadth, 
and thickness. It returns to the first or solid 
Gifts and makes them over. 

Modeling, therefore, takes the object inmiedi- 
ately, in its sensuous fullness, and reproduces it 
in that fullness. The child seizes the object just 
as it is, without the Abstract Magnitudes, which 
come later. He creates his form out of the 
given material by direct fiat. Modeling is the 
most immediate manifestation of creative power 
which man can show, and for this reason has 
been celebrated in all as^es. It teaches the child 
in the very beginning of his career, that the 
outer world in its most refractory elements is 
plastic, and will yield to his will and his thought. 
He starts, by means of Modeling, to realizing 
that the material universe is to be transformed by 
him, that he is to be the reshaper of Nature. 

Though all matter can be modeled ultimately, 
still there are some materials especially appropri- 
ate for the child. He naturally takes to clay or 
mud ; he begins to transform the very earth be- 
neath his feet; what he stands upon, he will 
make over. Of all thino^s s^iven to man, the 
earth would seem to be the least dispensable, 



318 THE rSYCUOLOGY OF 

yet the little child in his little way starts to reform 
the earth by means of mud-pies and dirt-houses. 

In the kindergarden this primitiye tendency 
of the child is not neglected. A fine sort of 
clay is used mainly, though the sand-pile too has 
its place, along with wax and other material of 
the kind. Turn the little fellow loose and let 
him form the earthy stuff, for thus he is really 
forming himself. 

If the child goes back to the first Gift and 
commences to make oyer what he started with, 
he will model the Ball, the round Ball out of clay. 
This, to me at least, has a far-reachin<j suo^aest- 
iyeness, and I cannot help thinking something of 
the same kind enters the soul of the child, though 
dimly. For he is making out of dust the earth 
itself in form, and this is the yery first thing he 
does in his creatiye actiyity ; he reproduces as 
his earliest work an earth-ball made out of yerit- 
able earth, and possibly whirls it from his hand 
into space. The little child cannot help re- 
enacting the Creator of the Uniyerse, from 
whom, indeed, comes that spiritual spark of his, 
which now manifests itself in a sudden scintilla- 
tion by world-making. 

So the child has begun to reproduce his grand 
outward presupposition, the very earth upon 
which he reposes as his primeval mother, forming 
it as does its Maker. Yet all this is done in i)lay : 
he, in his first creative act, plays creation itself. 



FB OEBEL ' S FLA Y GIF TS. — MODELING. 319 

And if he be really God-sent, what else can he 
do? 

The great educative fact in this action is that 
the child is unfolding what is deepest and best 
within him, what may be truly called the divine 
element of his nature. The original creative soul 
which made all things he shares in, and now he 
shows his participation in the same, he is de- 
veloping the God-like in himself. Then, too, 
in forming the Ball, rounding it off to complete- 
ness, he is forming and rounding himself off; he 
is slowly finding that invisible center which he 
has as well as the Ball, and which always 
determines the outside, the periphery of exis- 
tence. 

In ordering the Occupations, Modeling is, 
accordingly, placed first, though in the Manuals 
it is often found the last or next to the last on 
the list. It may be said to represent better than 
any other Occupation the primordial creative act, 
as hinted in Art and in the Mythus of peoples. 
The keynote sounding all through the Occupa- 
tions is reproduction; what has been given here- 
tofore, is to be transformed; the child is to 
return and begin to make its starting-point. 

The next thing to be considered is the inner 
quality w^hich Modeling pre-supposes in the 
material, for this quality is now a main element 
in the present stage, which also bears the name 
of Qualitative Gifts. What peculiar property, 



320 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

then, does matter reveal to the modeler, when it 
is handled or assailed? 

It is evident that formahility is the essential 
qualitative fact which underlies this Occupation. 
The external world is formabJe^ capable of 
receiving a new shape from the hands of man, 
who has, indeed, just this as a leading part in his 
terrestrial vocation — to shape anew the material 
universe and to make it the image and the bearer 
of his spirit. 

So the child begins his vocation, or an im- 
portant part of it, in Modeling, being sent back to 
the beginning and led to re-form the pre-f ormed 
in the most immediate way possible. Such is the 
fundamental educative note struck here at the 
start of the Occupations, winning the child by its 
profound harmony with his own instinct, and 
training: him to freedom, the srcat ethical end of 
his existence. For he has now to make or begin 
to make his own presuppositions, and that which 
before conditioned and determined him, he now 
conditions and determines out of his own voli- 
tion. Thus he commences to hew out for him- 
self the first stones which are to be built into the 
temple of freedom, of self-determination. 

All manual training has to have this principle 
in view, in order to be educative; hand, eye, 
muscle, observation, perception are to be strength- 
ened, still these are but moans, in the final out- 
look, to the supremo end, which is the free man 



FB0EBEU8 PLAY GIFTS.— MODELING. 321 

in a free world among free men. With this idea 
the commonest act in the daily humdrum of life 
is to be filled and transfigured. The child makes 
a start when he models the visible world about 
him, thus recreating and perpetually renewing 
himself within as well as his environment without. 
The child will take delight in getting acquainted 
with his material. He introduces himself to it 
by patting it, pinching it, punching it, testing its 
formabihty by thrusting his fingers into it, 
squeezing it and showing a multitude of other 
caresses. He must treat it somehow as he treats 
his mother whom he loves, sticking his forefinger 
into her eye, tweaking her nose, and pulling her 
hair. He even notes the response of the mate- 
rial which shows every act of his by a new form ; 
very submissive is the clay before him, more sub- 
missive than his mother, who after all cannot 
have her eyes gouged out or her face scratched 
and beaten like the passive clay. The father will 
cry out: "Give the child some clay, my dear, 
and let him mould that anew, for your face is 
that which I wish to keep. That in my eye is 
already perfect and needs no re-modelino-." 

So the child will come to love the material, and 
will soon find its peculiar quality, called here 
formability, or the capacity of taking and retain- 
ing form. Hitherto, in the Gifts, his material 
was presented to him already formed, and he 
combined its given forms, but now he sees him- 

21 



322 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

self tlic maker of these given forms. So he be- 
holds his Will made visible in the reproduction of 
form ; ever}^ little act leaves its impress on the 
material; he, changing it, can change the outer 
world, and he comes to know himself as a world- 
transformer, outwardly and inwardly. 

FormahiUiy . Repeatedly the attention of the 
reader has been called to the fact that Modeling 
rests upon the formable quality of matter, and 
that the f ormability of the material world enters 
into the consciousness of the child through the 
present Occupation specially. How important 
such a conception is in an industrial epoch, need 
not here be dwelt upon, as it may be considered 
later. But the earnest student will wish at this 
stage to take a rapid glance at the innnediate 
formable elements around him. 

1. The air you breathe is formable, supremely 
so ; every word you speak is a forming of the 
air, and a transmission of that form indefinitely 
in every direction. Indeed the soundless breath 
is separated from the vast aerial mass, formed, 
individualized. An old Greek philosopher called 
words speaking statues, with a metaphor taken 
from the sculptor who hews the stone into shape. 
The child, beginning to speak with an infantile 
babble, is practicing a kind of modeling out of 
air, making rude, short-lived statues of speech, 
and trainins: himself dav in dav out, till his air- 
model assumes the shape which is correct. In 



FB0EBEV8 PL A Y GIFTS.— MODELING. 323 

learning to talk, he has to make over what nature 
has given, the very atmosphere around him, and 
impress upon it his ideas, yes himself. Thus all 
literature may be regarded as a kind of speaking 
art-gallery, extending down Time and giving form 
to the best thoughts of the best men of the ages. 

But air is not visible, its forms appeal not to 
sight but to hearing, and thus are limited to one 
sense which gives merely succession and hence is 
laden with the vanishing. So we turn to a seen 
element, which is also formable. 

2. Water is capable of form, yet it also soon 
loses its form, and thus shows to vision the eter- 
nal transformation, the never-ceasing death and 
birth of material form. Because of its formable 
character, children love to play in water, to wade, 
splash, swim in its soft embrace. It is so yield- 
ing, so responsive, so patient of every childish 
caprice, taking every blow and closing up the 
wound as if nothing could hurt it, or estrange 
its placid love. No wonder that the child is fond 
of the water, and is going to make its acquaint- 
ance in spite of all prohibitions. 

Water has in it a sort of mediating principle, 
it carries heat and cold, it cleanses, it will pick 
up and bear off that other element, the earthy, 
when too persistent in its attentions. By nature 
water is transparent, yet is ready to receive 
nearly everything and hide it and spirit it away 
secretly in its bosom. Receptive, often colored 



324 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

by what it receives, determined from without, 
water has been called the neutral principle in 
nature, a kind of impartial mean between all 
things. 

Probably because of its formability, water was 
the first principle of the first philosophy of the 
Occident, which opens with Greek Thales and 
his Ionic School. Prophetic of the rising spirit 
of Greece was this early philosophy, hinting the 
Hellenic plastic art, and its tendency to form 
anew all things into the beautiful shape. ' ' Water 
is best," cries Pindar, the Greek lyric poet, an 
expression which seems trivial to us moderns, but 
which really comes out of the depths of the 
Hellenic soul, which is formative above all 
others. Goethe, supremely the master of form 
both in nature and in art, has not failed to give 
poetic utterance to the formability of water in 
his orreat reconstruction of the Classic World in 
the Second Part of Faust. The sea in its 
movement is a tireless form-maker, suggesting 
a multitude of shapes from the rapid hand of 
the primeval artist, whose work the Greek 
imagination caught up and re-embodied in myth 
and art. 

The child is, therefore, to learn about water 
through play, it is a genuine plaything for him. 
It may not be practicable to introduce it as a 
Play -gift into the kindcrgardon, still this often 
has, one may note in })assing, its bathing-tub for 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFT 8. — MODELING. 325 

children, some of whom have to be made ac- 
quainted with a very important property of water 
before anything can be done with them. 

The boy will take to the running stream or to 
the swimming pool; it is claimed by scientists 
that he still has rudimentary gills, which, though 
long disused, produce in him an itching for a 
little development. At any rate, swimming re- 
quires a mastery of an element, and has usually 
to be learned, though some boys have been 
known to swim at once by being thrown into a 
pool of water, paddling out like a dog or duck. 
But others drown in such a case, so there would 
seem to be a difference in the power of retaining 
ancestral traits. 

3. Clay or earth is another form able element, 
and is the one with which we are chiefly con- 
cerned in the kindergarden. Yet we have to 
unite the two elements — earth and water — for 
our purpose. Water by itself is just a little too 
formable, it is changeable, perpetually shifting 
its form, like Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea in 
the Odyssey. It must get some stability, which 
is obtained by mixing it with the more refractory 
or possibly more friable earth, so that the fixed 
solid matter will have enough of the watery 
formable principle to be easily moulded. Moist- 
ure enters into all modeling material, which is to 
be wrought over when moist ; then the humidity 
is allowed to evaporate and the form remains. 



326 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Thus the clay reverts to its hard or brittle, yet 
permanent nature, preserving, however, the shape 
into which it has been made. 

Water has another striking qualit}^ : through 
an increase of heat it turns to a kind of air, 
vapor, and flies off into the atmovsphere ; on the 
other hand, through a diminution of heat it 
becomes a solid, earth-like, and loses its forma- 
bility. From this point of view water is a kind 
of mean between air and earth, capable of turn- 
ing to either of these elements, in form at least. 

4. In this little survey of the physical elements 
and their formability, we must also mention the 
fourth one, fire, which takes form through itself, 
though hardly formable like the other three. 
Still man produces marvelous shapes of fire in 
pyrotechny, and the child will make a fiery ring 
by whirling a stick, one end of which is ignited. 

Fire is a consumer of form, yet in its destructive 
act it assumes form. We like to see the many 
shapes which the blaze takes in the hearth, as it 
undoes and dissolves wood and coal and other 
material ; it is good company and speaks to the 
soul literally with tongues of fire. But this 
formative power is more its own, coming from 
within, not so amenable to the hand of man, like 
the other elements. Still man gets control of it 
and turns its negative energy to the transforma- 
tion of earth's most refractory materials. Iron 
will not dissolve in water or very slowly, but it 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— MODELING. 327 

will melt in a hot flame, and even the diamond 
can be burnt up. 

Fire too has its relation to the other elements ; 
it must, like man, have air to breathe, it must 
have earth to feed on, and water will quench it, 
being its direct opposite and antagonist. 

The child on every side exists in relation to 
these four primary elements of nature, which 
have the quality of formability in one way or 
other. They are his primordial physical environ- 
ment which he has to transform in order to live. 
Morever in modeling he visibly employs two — 
earth, water, — working them over into new 
forms, so that he is becoming conscious of himself 
as the formative power of his world. Then he 
is secretly using in the same act two other ele- 
ments — air (breath) and fire (heat). 

Thus Modeling introduces the child into the 
primitive workshop of Nature, for she also is in- 
cessantly employing these four elements, keeping 
them in a perpetual round of formation and trans- 
formation, which constitutes the physical life of 
the planet. Nature has this secret plastic power, 
she is always forming and her first materials are 
the four elements; out of air, earth, water, fire, 
she shapes the apple as well as the globe. The 
child in modeling uses the same elements, also 
forming out of them in his way the apple and 
the objects around him. Thus he communes 
with the spirit of Nature, enters her workship 



328 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

and learns her art. Indeed he has this formative 
instinct along with Nature, being derived himself 
from Nature, himself a product of her plastic 
soul and inheriting her bent in this direction. 

Manifestly by means of the present Occupa- 
tion something which lies far down in the uncon- 
scious nature of the child is called forth and 
begins to exercise itself, having an outlook upon 
his great end, namely freedom. He is learning 
the formability of the elements and there\^ath 
of the whole external world. In a parallel line 
he is discovering and practicing the f ormabiUty of 
himseK. 

In Modeling, therefore, the child gets a pre- 
monition of what it can do and is to do with 
this material universe. Mould it, transform it, 
make it over into the house of freedom. That 
which is given first of all, the dust of the earth, 
is to be gathered up and shaped anew, primarily 
into a ball, w^iich, as before said, is a reproduc- 
tion of the original act of the Creator. The 
child cannot model without feeling his germinal 
power of creation budding within ; he is getting 
the Promethean touch, world-transforming, yet 
also self -transforming. 

TJie Lnphnnent. In order to obtain adequate 
possession of this quality of matter, formability, 
and to employ it for his purpose, the child should 
in due time be given an implement. 

The opposite doctrine has often been declared 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— MODELING. 329 

with emphasis, namely, that the child in the 
present Occupation should use no implement, but 
manipulate the clay simply with his hand. Un- 
doubtedly he has first to obtain control of his 
hand, and by touch to understand his material, 
to feel it, to knead it, to test it in various ways. 
But he is likewise to employ the tool the moment 
he is ready for it. And that moment has arrived 
when he can make his work more perfect by 
means of it, or can save time and labor. To be 
sure, a perfect work is not to be asked of the 
little child, his outlines are expected to be rude 
and his handling crude. Still it must be de- 
manded always that he strive toward perfection, 
and use every instrument for attaining it. Bad 
pedagogy assuredly is that which throws the 
child back upon his hand, his finger-nails, when 
he can do better with a tool. Such training runs 
counter to civilization itself, for it makes him 
spend his time at an economic disadvantage. 
We hold it to be a wrong to the child thus to 
fling him to the rear in the great race of life, 
whose success in these industrial days depends 
largely upon seizing the tool, the right tool at 
the right moment. It is often said by way of 
defense that he is kept back in order to acquire 
greater skill of the hand, but the greatest possi- 
ble skill of the hand lies in the right use of 
tools. There is no purpose of making the child 
an artist in Modehng, but there is the purpose of 



330 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

training him into a more perfect manhood, whose 
end is perfection itself. To lay down the proposi- 
tion, *' No tool in Modehng," is to the last degree 
narrowing, confining, destructive of the true aim 
of this Occupation ; no supposed ultimate result in 
acquiring manual dexterity can possibly justify 
such a procedure. The supreme end is to make 
as perfect as possible what you make, any other 
end militating with that cannot be allowed. 

The fact is, the child has to have a tool of 
some kind even in his most elementary work in 
Modeling. He cannot well cut the clay with his 
hand (often necessary is this careful cutting of 
it) ; he must have a thread if a sharp instrument 
is forbidden. " But he is not to use for dividing 
it a modeling knife." Such a rule is a orettinor 
back to nature with a vengeance — with a ven- 
geance wreaked upon the child. Is the little one 
to be })ermitted to eat with knife and fork at 
home? to use a comb for its hair? And yet 
this senseless regulation has apparently become 
the first principle of some educators, having been 
issued from the headquarters of a city school 
system. 

Already we have sought to impress the fact 
upon the reader that the chikl is going to the 
heart of his time, is training to participate in the 
civilization of his epoch, hy using the tool. Not 
only a tool-user, but a tool-tliinkiT, and so a tool- 
inventor he is getting to be, which is the spirit 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— MODELING, 331 

underlying all machinery, whose end is the en- 
franchisement of man. 

Psychology of Modeling. The great psychical 
fact in Modeling is that what the child has taken 
up into himself as a percept, he must now throw 
out of himself, separate from himself, and make 
into a new object. So Modeling becomes the 
most complete re-inforcement of vision, of sense- 
perception ; it is the real complement and outer 
fulfillment of sensuous intuition, which, being an 
activity of the Intellect, finds its counterpart in 
this formative activity of the Will. The percept 
is the object taken up and internalized by the 
Ego, and then ideally projected again into the 
world, by an inner creative act. But the modeler 
of the object makes this inner percept itself into 
an outer shape, creating it not only ideally but 
also really, and projecting it into the world as a 
new object. 

This is an act of Will, of distinctively creative 
power, by which the child remakes outwardly 
that which he has perceived internally. He is 
not satisfied simply to receive by sense-perception 
the made world outside of liimseK, he must make 
it over and thus assert himself as a world-creator, 
or as a free being Avho can reproduce his presup- 
positions, even his sensuous environment. Un- 
doubtedly Modeling sharpens and intensifies the 
perceptive faculty, as the books say; but this is 
not its best discipline. 



332 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Modeling satisfies the deepest longing of the 
child because through it he shows his validity 
positively, and not negatively. He can destroy 
things, and thus manifest his Will; still he feels 
it to be a better work when he creates. He can 
make himself vahd in the world b}^ destruction ; 
but then he is a devil. He knows himself divine 
when he produces; otherwise, as destroyer, he 
is ultimately destroying himself, which is not 
happy -making. Modeling is happy-making, be- 
cause it is a positive Occupation, eternally self- 
buildins: as well as world-buildins^. All kinder- 
gardners know the stress Avhich Froebel puts 
upon keeping the child positive in his play ; if he 
unmakes anything, he must be led to unmake his 
unmaking, or to negate his negative act and 
return to the positive. 

We may now say a few words concerning the 
order of Modeling in the kindergarden, as it has 
given rise to no little discussion. This order ought 
to be psychological, that is, in harmony with the 
child's own mind, his Ego. 

I. The child may be sent to the sand-pile or 
to the clay, and allowed at first to phiy with it, 
to handle it and to form it at his own sweet will. 
Thus he is getting accjuainted with his future 
companion, and likewise he is handed over for a 
time to his own caprice, or, as our friends, the 
Rousseauists, designate it, he is given his free- 
dom. It is well to let him have a little experience 



FBOEBEVS PLAT GIFTS.— MODELING 333 

of his own inexperienced self, which is empty or 
nearly so, lacking apperceptive material for this 
sphere. He will soon get tired, having almost 
no content in his mind with which to work, and 
not being able to form what he has. Jit this 
point or perchance sooner, the kindergardner is 
to step in with her prescribed order, which i^ 
the second stage of the process. 

II. The child is now to model what has been 
given hitherto, the Gifts, as they have been un- 
folded. Thus he begins to re-form the pre- 
formed, to make over what he has received from 
the outside. The reproductive activity of the 
Occupations is now the distinctive fact in the 
training of the child, who is to return upon what 
he has done previously, and to reproduce the 
shapes with which he played. This is still play, 
but a deeper phase of it, the more creative phase. 

The child will go back and model the Ball, the 
significance of which act has been already set 
forth. Then he will pass to the Building Gifts 
and mould the bricks and other forms for his con- 
struction. He will reproduce the various curvi- 
linear shapes, the convex, the concave, with their 
combinations. Thus he forms the material which 
he had once received ready-made, and is acquiring 
a deeper consciousness of his creative power over 
the external world, having modeled these sohd 
shapes in the Gifts of Concrete Magnitude. 

So, in Uke manner, the child is brought to re- 



334 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

new and re-establish the pre-established in the 
realm of spirit ; what he has done with the na- 
tural world, he is to do with the social and institu- 
tional world, into which also he has been born, 
and which he is to be perpetually making over 
into himseK, renewing and reconstructing the 
same. Family, State, Society, Church were given 
him at birth, but he has to recreate them all, and 
thereby possess them through active participa- 
tion. Thus he is attaining the institutional char- 
acter, basis of all the virtues. 

III. In this third stage, which may be called 
Free Modeling, the child is again to be handed 
over to himself, and is allowed to model what he 
pleases. He must not only be permitted, but 
encouraged to reproduce any object which strikes 
his fancy. He is now presented with his free- 
dom a second time ; let him turn to nature if he 
will, and form it to his heart's content. 

But his inner condition is very different from 
that of the first stage, when he was thrown 
immediately upon his own resources, of which 
resources he had almost none. He now has a 
content, an apperceptive material upon which he 
can draw; he has been given a little world, of 
which he has been the modeler; let him next 
try to model the great world, or some fragment of 
it, in whatever way his bent drives him. 

The truth is that previously when he was left 
simply to his empty caprice, he had no real free- 



FROEBEVS PL A Y GIFTS.— MODELING. 335 

dom, he had no choice between order and dis- 
order, between cosmos and chaos, between liberty 
and license. But when has an ordered whole, 
such as that given him by the previous Gifts, 
and its opposite to choose between, he has before 
him the two roads, the one leading to regulated 
freedom and the other to unbridled caprice. In 
the one case he is becoming the law-maker, in the 
other the law-breaker. When turned loose into 
nature at the start, he may choose between a 
stick and a stone for his modeling, but that is no 
educative choice, which must go far deeper and 
turn upon reproducing the order environing him, 
both material and spiritual. 

Moreover, we may add here, that when the 
child or the grown man for that matter is left to 
run wild in nature, he is not free in the sense 
that he has gotten rid of all pre-established 
forms. Nature is herself the pre-established, 
the transmitted, the hereditary, and rules with an 
iron necessity. She is essentially unfree in her 
government, determining her subjects from the 
outside. The flight from societj^ to nature is the 
underlying theme of Rousseau, who held it to be 
the grand liberation of man, but it is really his 
enslavement. Yet the child in his education is 
to taste and to taste deeply of nature in order 
that he may transform her, remodel her into the 
abode of his freedom. 

Such, then, is the psychological process of 



336 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Modeling, which the kindergardner is to embody 
in her training of the children under her charge. 
All three stages belong to the educative unfold- 
ing of the child's Ego; he is to have his caprice 
at first, but is to be led out of it into true free- 
dom through an established order, which in the 
present sphere is represented by the Gifts 
so-called. 

The great objection. The secret enemies of 
Modeling, strange to say, are found chiefly 
among the kindergardners themselves. As the 
material is clay, this Occupation is set down as 
dirty work, and not fit for a lady. But many or 
indeed the most employments in this world are 
not exactly clean. The house has a mysterious 
tendency to make hidden collections of dust- 
particles which have usually to be spied out by 
the female eye. To get rid of dirt is naturally a 
dirty task. I notice that Bridget in sweeping the 
carpet raises a horrid cloud which drives me out 
of the house. Yet the thing has to be done, I 
suppose. So these kindergarden children must 
not be afraid of Mother Earth clincrino: to their 
clothes affectionately, or even kissing them at 
times smack in the face and leaving there a mark 
of her attachment. A little too much daintiness, 
ofiishness, squeamishness with twisted nose and 
contorted features one may see in some kinder- 
gardners while manipulating the " dirty stuff." 

Undoubtedly we must have cleanliness, tidy 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— MODELING. 337 

habits, good manners in these children. What 
is to be done? Turn them loose upon the sand 
pile, give them the clay lumps, but put them 
into some kind of a protecting garment for the 
occasion. And let the kindergardner herself 
lead the way by her example ; let her deck her- 
self in a neat apron, and then take hold with full 
hand and heart, not with hesitating finger-tips of 
dainty disgust. Thus is engendered a sj^mpathy 
with toil and the toiler, with the laborino^ millions 
in the shops who are doing the work of the 
world in sweat and smoke and soot. Perchance 
this may be considered an advantage of the pres- 
ent Occupation over all the Gifts and other Occu- 
IDations : it is a little dirty. So the child may 
take a lesson in keeping himself clean under ad- 
verse circumstances. What memories I have of 
that kindergardner whom once I saw in her white 
drapery modeling the plastic clay! To me her 
appearance was that of a Greek Goddess; she 
Avould have been a good model herself for the 
sculptor just in her modeling. 

Not too fastidious, then, must we be in work, 
lest we get afiiicted with a sentimental nausea at 
the sight of toiling humanity. The legend says 
that man was made of clay, and why should he 
not sometimes betray his heredity? One thing is 
certain : thou shalt return to dust. Whimsical 
Johnny Appleseed has touched upon this sub- 

22 



338 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

ject ill one of his shrill quatrains, which may 
be here cited : 

Be not more dainty than thy race, 

For thou canst not dismiss it; 
Thy Mother Earth has a dirty face 

And thou shalt have to kiss it. 



II. 

THE INDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONS. 

The stage of multiplicity is indicated by the 
plural in the title just given. Most of the Occu- 
pations of the kindergarden are found under the 
present head, as we shall more fully see later on. 

The principle of Reproduction continues, but 
now it passes to Abstract Magnitudes, which are 
to show their creative and transforming power in 
the material world. The training to productivity 
which is so emphatically begun in the quantitative 
Gifts," is here realized more adequately than 
before, inasmuch as point, line, and surface 
become the moulds, so to speak, for shaping all 
matter. 

Moreover an economic, social or sociological 
element enters with distinctness. To a certain 

(339) 



340 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

extent the child is to reproduce the industrial 
world in which he lives ; he must take up into 
himseK the principle of all industries, and he 
must make over within himself the movement of 
economic civilization. He is to re-enact the 
origin of society, creating it in miniature through 
these Occupations, and at the same time creating 
himself as a member of society. Thus the 
kindergarden becomes a little society making 
society, and these Occupations give the child a 
training in social genesis, bringing him to pro- 
duce social relations and to put himself naturally 
into those relations. 

The fundamental fact, then, of the present 
section of the Occupations is the reproduction of 
Abstract Magnitudes — point, line, surface — in 
material objects. In Modeling, we recollect, 
there was the immediate reproduction of the 
sensuous object; point, line, and surface, though 
present, were implicit ; they were not consciously 
or distinctively brought out in the work. But 
now they become explicit, and appear in their 
own right, as it were; they mediate the form, 
and have their own separate place in thought and 
often in visible shape. 

What name can we find to designate the present 
sphere? We have used the term industrial, as 
the Occupations herein embraced are mostly 
little miniature copies of the great industries of 
the world. They are also reproductive in the 



FBOEBEVS TLAY GIFTS.— INDUSTBIAL, 341 

sense already given, they reproduce the Gifts of 
Abstract Magnitude as ModeUug has reproduced 
the Gifts of Concrete Magnitude. So we see a 
parallelism in movement between the Gifts and 
the Occupations, though each kind has its own 
meaning and its own place in the total process 
of the system of Play-gifts. 

It is manifest that the present section of the 
Occupations is based upon separation through- 
out — the separation of what from what? The 
Abstract Magnitudes of geometry (or of space) 
are separated from their concrete shapes and em- 
ployed to reproduce new objects. Hence this is 
the grand realm of the formation and transfor- 
mation of matter, which is the character of the 
industrial realm of human activity. The Ego, in 
getting hold of and using these Abstract Magni- 
tudes — point, line, surface — stands possessed 
of the ideal creative principle which dominates 
all form, and employs the same for its own repro- 
ductive purposes. The point, line, and surface 
belong to the material shape really, control- 
ling it, limiting it; they also belong to the Ego 
ideally, which, therefore, controls them and uses 
them as its own. So this Ego, this mind, has 
now the fundamental ideal implement, the tool of 
all tools, for the mastering of the external world 
of matter. 

In general, this industrial stage belongs to the 
second stage of the Psychosis, which moves 



342 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

through, unites and orders all the Occupations, 
being the stage of separation, abstraction, divis- 
ion. We shall find by far the greatest number 
of separate Occupations under the present head, 
representing many diverse industries. 

Yet the student must carefully bring to mind 
that in the broader sense, in the total sweep of 
the Gifts and Occupations this is the third stage, 
which we have in a general way designated as 
the reproductive. For now the abstract is re- 
produced and formed in the material, but this 
abstract element is itself a separation from the 
concrete. Thus the student will behold in every 
division of the Ego's process its total process 
at the same time — which is the foundation of 
all psychical knowledge worthy of the name. 
In this way alone can he be saved from the 
existing psychological Scylla and Charybdis : 
namely, from the crushing formalism and soul- 
destroying dilaceration of the old facultj'-psy- 
chology, and on the other hand from the oppo- 
site absurdity, which seeks to do away with the 
faculties and denies in substance the separative 
power of the Ego. This must be seen in its 
eternal process, which divides the one and yet is 
one in all division. 

We find a dominant note of the present 
sphere to be utility. Man takes the forms of na- 
ture, and makes them over into his own forms 
through point, line, surface, in order that they 



FBOEBErS PLAY GIFTS,^ INDUSTRIAL. 343 

may subserve his end, which lies outside of them 
in something else. Hence they are essentially 
a means, and we note here another phase of sepa- 
ration, that into means and end. Hence these 
are specially the useful or economical Occupa- 
tions ; even when decorative, they produce what 
decorates something else, the product is not self- 
end but a means, not so much artistic as utili- 
tarian. 

We must observe, however, that for the child 
the present Occupations are purely educative. 
They are to unfold his mind, not to give him a 
trade. To be sure, they may and will help him 
find his bent, his special talent, which may lead 
to a vocation ; but their true use is to help make 
him a man first of all, to unfold him into a well- 
rounded human being, who is capable of many if 
not of all directions. In these days of machinery 
one trade is no certain dependence for the individ- 
ual, who in such narrowness is liable to become 
tragic; he may have his means of sustenance 
taken away from him in a day by a new inven- 
tion, which saves labor but destroys the man. 
So the child is by education to become the pos- 
sibiUty of all trades, not the slave of one; there- 
by he meets the social problem of the time with 
a fair hope of victory. He is trained in these 
Occupations to a manifold industrial activity, in 
fact to the universal mastery of nature, whose 
forms he learns to reproduce and control for his 



344 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

own behoof, through his intimacy with her 
creative sources. 

In the present section we enter upon that 
portion of Froebel's system of Play-gifts in which 
there is the greatest room for difference, variety, 
multiplicity of all sorts. There is before us the 
vast field of human industry from which we may 
draw. So difference of opinion has here an 
enormous opportunity for exploiting itself. SoUie 
kindergardners will allow but few Occupations, 
some vdW. run them up to thirty or more. Still, 
though the boundary lines of inclusion and ex- 
clusion be shifting and misty, we shall find a 
pretty general consensus of judgment concerning 
what are the most important Occupations. Thus 
there is a solid core of opinion round which the 
more volatile penumbra of individual preference 
and caprice hovers and shifts and struggles. 

We shall now attempt to put into psychological 
order the main Occupations which the kinder- 
garden organism has adopted. Three masses or 
divisions can be seen, which form the stages of 
the process of the present sphere. Let the reader 
be reminded once more that the characteristic of 
this sphere is the reproduction of Abstract Mag- 
nitudes. In the following outline, therefore, he 
is to observe the movement of this reproduction 
in its various phases. 

A. Reproduction of Abstract Magnitudes in 
material immediately, for example through Mod- 



FBOEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS.^ INDUSTRIAL. 345 

eling. The point, line, and surface are repro- 
duced, are copied as it were, or re-embodied in 
clay, or, it may be, in other material. The 
models here are the Gifts of Abstract Magnitude 
already set forth in the previous chapter. 

B. Reproduction of Abstract Magnitudes in 
material, not by copying them but by making 
them change or transform the object. Point, 
line, and surface are now reproduced, not pas- 
sively in the pliable clay, but actively changing 
the material. A line, modeled in wax and laid 
out on a surface, is simply passive; but when 
the same line holds the parts of the surface to- 
gether, it is active and enters into the character 
of the object. A thread may represent a line 
taken by itself ; but the same thread sewed into 
a fabric may change it into a garment. Thus 
point, line, and surface are not merely formable, 
they are forming and transforming; that is, they 
are twofold, they are an end as in the first stage, 
yet also a means. 

Here, then, enters the realm of difference, into 
which we pass in the reproduction of Abstract 
Magnitudes. Point, line, surface — each is sep- 
arately a shape yet makes a shape. 

C. Reproduction of all the Abstract Magni- 
tudes — point, line, surface — as distinct and 
separate, yet united into one shape. This is seen 
in the so-called peas- work, in which the separa- 
tion of the present sphere is made complete and 



346 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

visible in its three elements — point, line and 
surface — yet all three are joined together in one 
shape. This figure, therefore, is the whole 
embodiment and conclusion of the industrial 
Occupations, whose function is to reproduce 
Abstract Magnitudes, since they are all now re- 
produced and held in unity by this one form, and 
the end is just this reproduction. 

Such is the inner psychical movement which 
we find in this industrial sphere of reproduction, 
essentially that of Abstract Magnitudes. In it 
we note the three stages of the Psychosis. The 
first we shall call The Plastic Industrial Occupa- 
tion, in which you employ the material to make 
point, line, and surface. The second we shall 
call The Useful Industrial Occupations, in which 
you use point, line, and surface to transform the 
material. The third we shall call The Graphic 
Industrial Occupation, in which you use point, 
line, and surface, to make point, line, and sur- 
face; that is, to embody them in a material 
form whose end is to show them as point, line, 
surface. 

The last stage evidently completes the c} cle 
of the Industrial Occupations, since it shows the 
return of the whole series of Abstract Magni- 
tudes, in its reproductive movement, back into 
itself. The point, line, and surface as active 
(second stage) have reproduced the point, line, 
and surface as passive (first stage), both of 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS — INDUSTBIAL. 347 

which are united in the production of Peas-work 
(third stage). 

Of course these statements are very general, 
and cannot be fully understood without the de- 
tailed exposition, to which they are merely a sign- 
board pointing out the way. This exposition we 
are now to give in the proposed order. 

A. The Plastic Industrial Occupation. In 
this name we seek to desio-nate the three lead- 
ing facts of the subject. First, it is an Occupa- 
tion, and hence reproductive; secondly, it is 
industrial, reproducing Abstract Magnitudes — 
point, line, surface; thirdly, it is plastic, repro- 
ducing them immediately, through Modeling, in 
solid material. 

The present Occupation is different from the 
preceding (the Plastic Occupation), inasmuch as 
it reproduces, not the Gifts of Concrete Magni- 
tude, but those of Abstract Magnitude, and 
hence belongs to the second stage in the complete 
Psychosis of the Occupations. Point, line, and 
surface are actually materialized by the child and 
that is here the object. 

We should not, however, forget to state that, 
while the material in one sense determines the 
point, line, and surface, in another and deeper 
sense they determine the material, giving to it 
their own forms. They, so to speak, passively 
receive the material into their molds, and stop 



348 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

with that ; but in the next Occupation they will 
become active, even in their embodied shapes, 
and transform other material beside their own. 
Yet even in our present Occupation, point, line, 
and surface are not absolutely passive. 

Accordingly, we are to consider the immediate 
reproduction of Abstract Magnitudes — point, 
line, surface — in material by means of Modeling. 
They are to be formed now in clay or in some 
other f ormable substance ; the child is to re- 
create them, and then to employ them for his 
combinations. Previously in the Gifts these 
Abstract Magnitudes, in the shape of tablets, 
sticks, seeds, were giv^en him already formed; 
but he is now to form them for himself and so 
make in this respect his own material. 

In the Gifts the point, line, and surface, being 
ideal, were re-embodied for the child Avho could 
not yet grasp them in their abstraction from the 
concrete object. Still in plajdng with them as 
given things, he was getting their meaning. But 
here in the Occupations he is to take the next 
great step forward, he is to form his Abstract 
Magnitudes himself, not simply receive them 
already formed ; thus he is doing with his hand 
what he is soon to conceive with his mind. He is 
projecting outwardly, what he in due season must 
project inwardly; then he has reached the ab- 
straction or the ideal which is the creative ty^Q 
of all surfaces, lines, points. 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— INDUSTRIAL. 349 

The complete logical opposite of the solid or 
Concrete Magnitude would be the point, which 
has not length, breadth or thickness, is the total 
negation of the three dimensions, which belong- 
to the reality. Hence the point is a thought, is 
ideal, is the absolute difference from the solid. 
In the present stage of Abstract Magnitude this 
difference is what is introduced, so that we might 
now expect the direct transition to the point as 
our beginning. 

While this is true in thought, we must at the 
same time not leave out the movement to the 
point from the solid. Such is the immediate 
stage of the process before us ; we must first pro- 
ceed from the Concrete Magnitude of the pre- 
vious stage to the Abstract Magnitude of the 
present one, starting with the surface which is 
nearest to the solid, and moving through the line 
to the point. 

Moreover, Modeling is the means which con- 
nects this directly with the preceding stage, in 
which the solids were modeled. The shapes are 
indeed patterned after the Gifts of Abstract 
Magnitude, and manifest the same order which 
was shown there. This order we shall keep, 
preserving in it the idea of derivation from the 
preceding Gifts. That derivation, we recollect, 
should have directness, completeness, and sym- 
metry. (See these terms illustrated under the 
head of Tablets.) 



S50 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Accordingly the Gift.s of Abstract Magni- 
tude — surface, line, point — should be modeled 
in the Occupations. Otherwise the movement of 
reproduction is not complete nor symmetrical. 
Something is left out, and the result is a break 
in the genetic sequence. As a rule kindergard- 
ners do not have their children model point, line, 
surface ; they have not hitherto distinctly seen 
that this was a necessary step in the development 
of the Occupations. Still they report that the 
children of themselves will make out of clay 
point, line, surface, through an instinctive bent 
to produce what has previously been given. The 
child who has received in the Gifts the ready- 
made shapes of the Abstract Magnitudes, cannot 
help reproducing them when he gets his hand 
upon some pliable material. And he is right ; he 
is educating himself, and if we listen to the silent 
voice of his deed, we shall be able to supply a 
missing^ link in the kindero^arden succession of 
Occupations. So we shall be justified in unfold- 
ing the surface, line, and point at the present 
stage. 

1. The child is to form in his material the 
surface, which corresponds to the tablets, curvi- 
lineal and rectilineal. The clay cube may be 
taken and its side or sides cut off with a string 
or knife. The process of abstraction thus 
becomes visible, and is performed outwardlv by 
the child. The triangle can be made by divid- 



FB0EBEV8 PLAY GIFTS.— INDUSTRIAL. 351 

ing: the brick. But here aoain comes the diffi- 
culty which was noticed in discussing the trian- 
ofular tablets : some of them are not directly 
derivable from the preceding forms. In Model- 
ing the derivation becomes specially important, 
for the shapes have to be formed by a principle 
oeneticallv. The aro-ument for the easily deriv- 
able tablets is strongly reinforced at this point. 
Also the shortening of the right-angled scalene 
triangle is doubtful from the standpoint of 
Modeling, for it cannot be derived but only 
copied from the made Gifts. It is evident that 
the inner genetic thread which runs through and 
hold together the whole series of Gifts and Occu- 
pations gets lost, and the child has to drop down 
to mere external imitation in his Modeling. 
Thus it loses the best part of its training value, 
which is to make him internally unify all that he 
externally shapes. 

2. Following the order of the Gifts, as well as 
the movement from the concrete to the abstract, 
the child is next to model the line, represented 
previously by given sticks and rings. Let him 
now shape or cut his material and construct his 
figures out of what he has formed. Thus he is 
combining not only the pre-formed, but also the 
re-formed; his products may not be quite so 
perfect as what others have made for him, still 
they are his own and reveal him to himself as 
creative. In this way he is makino- his own 



352 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

world, and taking his child-strides toward the 
goal of freedom. 

3. At last he will model the point out of clay, 
or transform some solid into points by division. 
This is the extreme of separation, which he is to 
see in its complete abstraction. He will feel the 
concentration involved in its making and get the 
inner discipline. Then he will pass to combining 
the points till they suggest lines or surfaces. 
Thus he does with the made points what he once 
did with the given points. 

In this way the child easily repeats in the 
Occupations what he has learned in the Gifts, 
yet Avith a new thought, that of reproducing his 
material. The kindergardner should not fail to 
go through (very rapidly it may be) the Gifts of 
Abstract Magnitude with material shaped by 
the child in order to deepen the creative lesson. 
He will take the lesson in his way, connecting his 
present activity with his previous one, and feel- 
ing in his work the ever-present hint of repro- 
duction. All kinds of surfaces and lines — 
straight, curved, concentric — he can model or 
shape or cut in some way ; thus he is learning to 
reconstruct his environment in accord with his 
own ideals, for even point, line, and surface are 
ideals which he is now realizing. 

We have here reached the point which has been 
reproduced in material form by Modeling. But 
what about this point? It is in thought the com- 



FB0EBEV8 PLAY GIFTS.— INDUSTRIAL. 353 

plete abstraction, the abstraction from length, 
breadth and thickness. Still the point is not the 
same as simple nothing; it is, and is active, else 
it would not be a point. It must still be abstrac- 
tion; but from what can it now abstract? Only 
from itself. Thus the point is self -negative, 
self -repellent, self-projecting, and so projects 
itself into a line. The point is, therefore, in its 
last character, the turning-point, and moves out 
of itself into a line. The clay point, divided 
within itself, and made two points, suggests the 
line. The point, when reached, can go no fur- 
ther in its negative progress, but turns on itself, 
overcomes itself and goes in the other direction. 
Or we may say abstrusely, the point is the nega- 
tion of negation, and so becomes positive. 

Thus the point embodied moves out of itself, 
suggesting and also embodying the line. The 
point thereby becomes the transforming principle 
of matter, its creative energy will realize itself 
in line, outline, surface, solid. From this inner 
power of the point the material world is trans- 
formed. Here again we have to grasp the point 
as turning-point, or as transition-point, making 
the transition from its more passive and receptive 
condition in the modeling of Abstract Magnitudes 
to its active, generative, transforming character 
in the following stage. We have already noticed, 
however, that even in the preceding plastic stage 
the point, line and surface determine the form of 

23 



354 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

the material like a mould, and so are not wholly 
passive. But now the surface, line and specially 
the point being moulded in material go forth and 
mould material in their turn ; they become imple- 
ments themselves and call for implements. This 
brings us to the next stage. 

B. The Useful Industrial Occupations. 
Here we enter distinctly the realm of utility ; the 
Abstract Magnitudes have become a means, or 
an implement which is useful, whose end lies 
outside of itself. Thus the economic world 
dawns on us, especially in its educative import 
for the child, who is to recreate it in and for 
himself. 

Accordingly we are to consider the second 
stage of the reproduction of Abstract Magnitudes 
in matter. Point, line and surface are still repro- 
duced, but not for their own sake as in Modeling ; 
they are employed in changing the object for 
another end than the mere reproduction of them- 
selves. The threads of a carpet may be consid- 
ered embodied lines made into a surface ; but the 
lines and the surface are not there for their own 
sake, they serve a purpose beyond themselves, 
namely man's need. 

Here the industrial principle begins to show 
itself. The material universe is to be trans- 
formed by means of point, line, surface, into 
objects which in some way are useful to man. 



FROEBEVS Play GIFTS.- INDCrSTBIAL. 355 

In Modeling the immediate end was to model a 
surface, line, point, in their own right, though 
they too had an ultimate end, namely the educa- 
tive one for the child. But in the present stage 
the Abstract Magnitudes are made into a means 
for producing something which has utility; yet 
all of this is likewise educative for the child. 

The movement will henceforth be different; 
it will be from the point toward the surface and 
the solid, though it will never quite reach the 
latter. The point now turns on itself, is by its 
own inherent nature the turning point, negating 
itself as simple point (which would be nothing at 
all). The point, to be point, must be axial and 
overcome itself into a line ; it is not merely passive 
but genetic, self -generating, self -unfolding. 

The point, having this creative energy within 
itself, will show its power over all matter, making 
the same into lines, surfaces, and thereby trans- 
forming the solid into new shapes. For the 
point can now generate any line and embody the 
same in whatever material it selects ; it is verily 
the Ego in its externally creative energy making 
over the outer world. 

Why put the useful industrial Occupations in 
the second or separative stage of the present 
movement? Because of the already mentioned 
division into means and end; in Modeling the 
Abstract Magnitudes were reproduced for them- 
selves, as their own end ; but now they are repro- 



356 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

duced as a means for an end other than them- 
selves. Hence this is sometimes called the realm 
of the useful Arts in contrast to the fine Arts. 
Such, however, is the division: the reproduction 
of Abstract Magnitudes separates within itself, 
and becomes a means for an end, in other words 
they get the principle of utility. 

So the child is to have the discipline which 
comes from the industrial Occupations, not 
simply for the sake of the dexterity acquired, 
though this is not to be despised, but for the 
sake of the education. He is training to make 
himself useful by making useful things. He too 
must often transform himself into a means to an 
end, and give himself up to the small duties of 
hf e as well to the grand ultimate purpose of exist- 
ence. As an ethical being he has to surrender 
himself to an institutional end which lies outside 
of him, and exists in its own right; yet, on the 
other hand, institutions have him as their end, 
and so give back to him his own in its highest 
form, namely, his freedom. The utilitarian side 
of education has its meaning, yes its ethical 
meanino:, thousth it be not at all the whole of 
education. 

The child, therefore, transforms his material 
for an end outside of the object so transformed, 
yet this end shows itself more or less distinctly 
in the form. We must see that in such an act 
he is transforming himself, he is making himself 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.- INDUSTRIAL. 357 

useful in making useful things. An important 
element of human life and human relationship, 
yet not all ; it is to have its due place in the 
child's education. 

Under the present head nearly all the Occupa- 
tions of the kindergarden are arranged in the 
manuals, varying usually from ten to twenty. 
We shall try to put the leading ones into an 
order which corresponds with the inner move- 
ment of the child's mind. 

As the point is now active, we have to indicate 
this activity in the statement. In the first place 
we shall have to consider the pohit moving into 
the line as ideal. We have reached the point as 
self -repellent or self -projecting into a line. At 
the same time it embodies itself in material 
shape. The point breaks into space and shivers 
it to atoms, or indeed less than atoms, since it is 
the negation of all extension, has not length, 
breadth or thickness. Still the point is spatial, 
in order to be at all, and so must extend itself 
and become hue. By itself it cannot be with- 
out being simply nothing, a blank. So the point 
must extend itself, project itseK. 

The point uttering (outering) itself into a 
line can be straight or curved, or concentric. 

The Occupations which show or suggest the 
movement from point to line are Dotting, Per- 
forating, Cutting, to which others are sometimes 
added. 



358 THE PSYCHOL OGT OF 

In the second place the line moves to outline 
and to surface. 

All of the preceding lines which return into 
one another suggest the surface, for instance, a 
circular row of dots or stitches. But Weaving, 
that most important and universal handicraft, 
shows the line as material moving into the surface 
as material ; the ideal surface is transformed into 
a real substantial one before the eye. Here too 
we may place the Interlocking of Slats, the Inter- 
twining of Paper, to which list other Occu- 
pations may be indefinitely added. The most 
common of these we shall try hereafter to order 
psychically. 

We are still employing the forms of Abstract 
Magnitudes, material and non-material (for 
instance the thread and the cut line) for the 
purpose of transforming material objects and 
thus making them useful. Yet the final end in 
these Occupations for the child is educative, he 
is making himself useful in making useful things, 
he is training himself especially as a member of 
the social order. It is no objection to these 
Occupations that they are utilitarian ; utility has 
its niche in this world of ours, and utiUty is not 
to be thrown out of the education of the child. 

In the third place we reach the thought of 
return in the self-returning surface. That is, the 
surface now bends around and returns into itself, 
as did the point in order to produce the line, and 



FB0EBEV8 PLAY GIFTS.— INDUSTRIAL. 359 

the line in order to produce the outline. Thus 
the primal character of the point perpetuates 
itself, or the total material surface goes back and 
re-enacts the first stage, the movement from point 
to line (and outline). 

This is shown in the Occupation called card- 
board modeling, in which the material surface is 
bent back into itself and produces a space-con- 
taining or hollow object. It is not a solid, though 
sometimes so designated ; it would not belong to 
the present sphere, which is the reproduction of 
Abstract Magnitudes, if it were a solid. Its 
very nature is to be space-inclosing, to contain 
emptiness which can be filled. Thus it has a 
very important place in the useful Arts, being the 
example and prototype of all kinds of boxes, 
kettles, cups, pans, utensils for holding fluids, 
for surrounding them with a fixed surface which 
will not let them escape. In commerce the pres- 
ent form suggests what is known as hollow ware. 
Bottom, top, sides, it has, all of them surfaces 
connected or self -returning, and thus capable of 
holding things. 

The following movement will, accordingly, 
show itself in the. present stage, which also 
must reveal its order through the Psychosis. 
The student may find it to her profit to turn 
back to the Gifts of Abstract Magnitude, where 
the point unfolds itself ideally as turning-point, 
and to note the correspondence in movement. 



360 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Thus the inner, creative significance of these 
Gifts of Abstract Magnitude will become more 
deeply impressed upon the mind : — 

1. Point moving into the Line (as suggested 
or ideal). 

2. Line (as real) moving into the Surface (as 
suggested or ideal ) . 

3. Surface (as real) moving into itself, or 
self -returning, which gives the suggested solid. 

As this is the great field of selection and 
hence of variation, the kindergardner may notice 
some Occupations omitted and others added 
which are little used. The main thing, however, 
is the psychical process ordering these Occupa- 
pations, which is also the great educative fact. 
There may be dozens of Occupations in the 
present field, and they may well vary according 
to circumstances, and even according to locality. 
Still, in spite of all variations there is the 
fundamental psychical movement which is to 
hold them together in an active, yes self -active 
unity. 

1. Point to Line as ideal. The Point as 
already unfolded in the Gifts of Abstract Magni- 
tude is self -separating, self -projecting and thus 
moves into the Line ideally. From Point to 
Point lies the suggestion of the Line, though it 
may not be real. We start the useful industrial 
Occupations with such a Point, truly their start- 
ing-point, reproducing this element of Abstract 



FB0EBEV8 PLAY GIFTS.— INDUSTBIAL. 361 

Magnitude in a material object as a means for 
making something. 

(a.) Dotting. The Point is made real in a 
dot; it is thus immediate, material, the positive 
Point. An implement, is employed, say a lead 
pencil; and now color can be introduced. 

(h.) Perforating. The Point next penetrates 
matter, separates it, and thus indicates the 
separative stage. The Point is here not a dot 
but a puncture, asserts itself actively against the 
material object, passing from without to within. 
Again an implement comes into use, a joointed 
one. If the first Point be called positive, this 
may be named the negative Point, showing itself 
by the negation of matter, which is thereby seen 
to have no reality against it. 

(c.) Cutting. The Point as perforation moves 
into a line, is continuously active in its division. 
Or the Point as separative returns to itself, to 
another Point, and so produces the separating 
line. The implement is now itself a continuous 
line of sharp Points, a needle projected or pro- 
longed into an edged tool, the knife or scissors. 

It may be here noticed that each of these 
Occupations — Dotting, Perforating, Cutting — 
has a corresponding implement — the dull Point 
in the pencil, the sharp Point in the needle, the 
sharp edge (line) in the knife-blade. The sur- 
face has an implement Avhich is a surface in the 
brush or even in the flat of the hand. The tool is 



362 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

like its work, we make a Point with a Point and 
a cut Line with a Line. The dot and the punc- 
ture in succession suggest the Line, and may be 
brought to suggest the surface of the outline. 
Still the Point in the present stage is real, while 
line, outline, and surface are ideal. But through 
the cut line repeating itseK in the material we 
get the strip, string, the real line — with which 
we pass to the following stage. 

The process which shows itself in Dotting, 
Perforating, Cutting, will be manifest to the 
careful student, who is to hold together all these 
seemingly distinct things in the unity of her 
thought. The kindergardner who keeps ever 
present and fresh in her soul this genetic move- 
ment in the simple Occupations is the one who is 
growing and is truly creative in her task, which 
becomes to her not a disconnected, distracted 
spirit-deadening routine, but a living fountain of 
inspiration. When playing with the children, 
she still keeps inwardly the generative thread 
which creates and unifies what she is doing. 

Already we have come to the real Line, or the 
Line materialized, which is next to perform its 
part in these useful industrial Occupations. 
This embodied Line in its various forms is to be 
wrought in material objects of manifold kinds, 
transforminof them and making them useful. 

2. Line to Surface as ideal. Here too we 
very properly expect a movement, which connects 



FB0EBEV8 PLAY GIFTS.— INDUSTRIAL. 363 

genetically the Occuptions of the present stage. 
As in the previous stage the real Point produced 
the ideal or suggested Line and they passed into 
the real or materialized Line, so now the real Line 
will produce the ideal or suggested Surface, and 
then pass over into the real Surface, dropping in 
its passage quite a series of industrial Occupations. 

(a.) The real Line in these Occupations takes 
a number of shapes — thread, strip, string, slat, 
etc. ; also it is made of a variety of materials. It 
will hold together points, lines, surfaces, and 
still remain a Line, showing itself the connecting 
element. 

( 1 . ) Bead-stringing — which is a stringing of 
points on a line, both of course being material. 

(2.) Straw-stringing — which is a stringing of 
lines on a line, the straws being cut to a suitable 
length for this purpose. Also the perforation is 
not given as in beads, but is made by the child. 

(3.) Tablet-stringing — which is a stringing 
of surfaces on a line. These surfaces may be 
represented by a button or a disc, Avith perfora- 
tions already given or to be made with the imple- 
ment. 

These three Occupations may not be deemed 
very important, but they all have been and are 
still at times used in the kindergarden. It is at 
least worth while to know their . place in the 
order. 

Such is the Line as Line, wherein it is shown 



364 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

taking np and holding together in line the Ab- 
stract Magnitudes — points, lines, surfaces. Yet 
it holds them together as distinct, in separation. 

(6.) Line passes to outline, returning into 
itself. Thus we have the two parts : the real 
outline and the ideal or suggested surface. Here 
belong a number of important Occupations, since 
the outline lends itself specially to form-making, 
and reaches over toward drawing, which is at 
first a kind of outlining. The line now incloses 
the surface, which may be ideal or non-material, 
and also material or real. 

(1.) Strip-interlacing. Paper strips are em- 
ployed as lines in various combinations and par- 
ticularl}^ as outlines. These strips may be more 
or less broad, thus showing something of a sur- 
face; still the essence is linear. Interlacing of 
paper strips calls into plaj^ chieflj^ the quality of 
pliability in the material. 

(2.) Slat-interloching. We change the line 
from paper to wood, which shows a new property 
of matter hereto be employed, nanieh^ elasticity. 
Slat-interlocking is distinguished from strip- 
interlacing by its independence, being held to- 
gether by its own inner power, and not required 
to be pasted to some supporting object outside 
of itself. It may indeed lean as a whole against 
an external support, as it is still material ; but it 
should not fall together within or drooj), as paper 
strips are inclined to do, if set upright. The 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.- INDUSTBIAL. 365 

forms produced by the interlocking of slats show 
an individuality of their own, an internal bond of 
connection which separates them from the pre- 
ceding forms. 

(3.) Sewing in outline. The real line or 
thread is made to pass through a perforation, 
and thus produce an outline. Sewing in one 
way or other employs point, line, and surface, as 
well as implement. It runs a hue through a 
series of points, and thereby outlines a surface of 
some sort ; in it we see the Abstract Magnitudes 
transforming the material object. 

(c.) The real Line passes into the real Sur- 
face. We now behold the fillino- of the outline 
or the makinoj of the surface, which is no lonoer 
simply suggested or outlined but is materialized. 

Weaving is the Occupation which illustrates 
the preceding statement. It has usually two sets 
of lines (or threads) which cross one another and 
produce the surface. By weaving the vast variety 
of tissues is brought into existence, those fabrics 
of which man's clothing is chiefly made. Nature 
weaves in hundreds of ways both in the plant 
and in the animal. Life has a tendency to cover 
itself everywhere with its woven garment, whose 
weaving is a part of its own process. To live is 
to weave, and this inner tissue of his body man 
projects outside into his raiment, to hide his 
nakedness. 

Weaving must, therefore, be pronounced a 



366 THt: PSYCHOLOGY OF 

great thing. The scattered threads of existence 
(jDhysical and mental) it gathers into the con- 
nected surface, thus producing the fabric of 
life's unification (Lebenseinigung). After food 
comes raiment, which soon calls for some kind 
of weaving. 

3. Surface simple to self -returning . We may 
consider the real surface to have been produced 
for us by Weaving. We have, accordingly, 
gotten our surface materialized, and next we are 
to transform it by the Abstract Magnitudes, thus 
showing some new industrial Occupations. 

(a.) Sewing — which in its primal form is 
the fastening together of two material surfaces 
through point and line, also material. This is 
distinct from outline sewing, which was previously 
considered. 

(5.) Papei^-icork^ which has a number of 
varieties. Paper is the chief surface employed 
in the kindergarden ; it is pliable, adjustable with 
a very shght reaction against assault ; it is yield- 
ing, responsive, impressible ; its general character 
is to receive easily and to preserve what it 
receives. 

Paper will respond to the point and the line, 
which transform it in several significant ways. 
As in the Sewing we had the thread or the 
positive line, so now we have the cut line, or the 
negative hue, which separates in becoming a part 
of the surface. 



FROEBEUS PLAT GIFTS — INDUSTRIAL. 367 

(1.) Outside cutting^ or the separation of the 
surface round the border, whereby manifold 
shapes are produced. 

(2.) Inside cutting, or the removal of the 
surface within, whereby manifold shapes are 
produced; that is, the paper inside the border is 
cut away. The inside cutting produces a corre- 
sponding outside cutting, which may be and 
often is preserved. 

(3.) Paper-folding ; the surface is not now 
cut away but is folded or duplicated; in this 
sense the present process is the opposite of the 
preceding. Yet paper-folding uses the line, now 
in the form of the crease, not of the cut. 

All three Occupations diminish the surface of 
the paper, though in different ways, and run 
lines through it to produce figures. 

(c.) Box-ivorh. Now the surf ace returns into 
itself out of its form, and produces the box. 
This is usually called in the kindergarden card- 
board modehng, but the term is a misnomer. In 
the first place it is not modeling at all, which 
properly belongs to plastic work ; in the second 
place many other materials beside cardboard can 
be used, especially paper and wood and clay. 

Thus we have reached the self -returning sur- 
face, quite as the point returned into itself 
(another point) and produced the line, quite as 
this hne returned into itself and produced the 
outline with its suggested or inclosed surface. 



368 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

We observe that the first genetic nature of the 
point has kept itself up through line and surface. 
The surface now concludes itself by producing 
not exactly a solid, but what seems such — a 
hollow solid. 

As regards the shapes which Box-work assumes 
we may notice the following movement in them : 

( 1 . ) The surface returning simply into itself 
and producing the square and the round box, as 
well as their derivative shapes. 

(2.) The box can be separated within by par- 
titions of various kinds — the internally divided 
box. 

(3.) Concentric boxes, square and round, can 
be reproduced in this Occupation by the child. 
As already set forth under the Gifts of Abstract 
Magnitude, concentrism belongs inherently to the 
line and the surface; at present it appears again, 
for the purpose of being embodied in the work 
of the child. 

It has already been said that the psychical 
principle of the box remains the same, whatever 
be the material of which it is constructed. If 
the box be made of clay, the work is usually 
called modeling, and it is placed under cla}^- 
modeling. Psychically, however, it is box- work, 
or hollow- ware work, to which most kinds of 
pottery belong. A jar or vase is a round, self- 
rcturning surface, be it of stone, wood, or clay. 
The commercial term is hollow-ware, and that 



FBOEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— INDUSTBIAL. 369 

brings out the idea of the utility of the object, it 
is good for containing something in its hollow 
portion. 

But now the surface is to return into itself, 
and at the same time make point and line ex- 
plicit, which it has hitherto held implicit within 
itself. Such is the completed return of the Ab- 
stract Magnitudes in the present stage. 

C. The Graphic (self-reflecting) Indus- 
trial Occupation — Peas-work. Point, Line, 
Surface, picture themselves in their reality before 
passing into the picture or drawing, in which 
they are made to appear real. 

In Peas-work the elements of Abstract Mao^ni- 
tude are reproduced as distinct and separate, yet 
united in one shape ; thus there is the most com- 
plete separation, yet combined into unitj^ Point, 
Line, and Surface (Outline) are visible, material, 
explicit ; also there is the return of the Surface 
into itself, which makes the object space-inclos- 
ing, hollow — a box. It is not solid, though 
sometimes declared to be so ; it too holds things 
and resembles the crate of commerce, which is 
employed for the transportation of certain kinds 
of merchandise. Froebel calls it a transparent 
solid, though such a designation is not, and per- 
haps is not intended to be, strictly accurate. 

We must see that Peas-work is a return to 
Modeling, the first or plastic stage of the In- 

24 



370 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

clustrial Occupations. The Point, Line, Surface 
(in outline) are reproduced separately in material, 
for their own sake, in order to show themselves 
in their own rio^ht, thous^h they are united in a 
form which may be used for another purpose. 
Peas-work cannot be said to represent a useful 
economic art, like weaving, sewing, or box-mak- 
ing. In the kindergarden it would hardly appear, 
were it not for its educative purpose in showing 
the third stage in the movement of the industrial 
Occupations. 

In Peas-work Point, Line, Surface (the Abstract 
Magnitudes) embody themselves in a material 
shape, whose end is just this embodiment of 
Point, Line, and Surface in a material shape. 
Or we may say that Point, Line, and Surface now 
reproduce themselves simply for the sake of mani- 
festing their own self -reproduction. That is, they 
are here seK-reflecting, graphic, making a picture 
of themselves, and so form the transition to 
Drawing. 

Furthermore, they are means to an end, but 
this end does not lie outside of themselves as in 
the second stage, the useful industrial Occupa- 
tions ; they have become the means for their own 
self -manifestation. They are three, yet one in 
all distinctness, hence they are a very suggestive 
imao^e to the Eo^o of itself. 

Peas- work, like Box- work, is capable of many 
forms derived from the line. 



FB0EBEU8 PLAY GIFTS.— INDUSTRIAL. «"71 

1 . Simple forms — curved or straight-lined . 

2. Partitioned forms — with hnes running in- 
side and making partitions — crates. 

3. Concentric forms — rectilineal and also 
curvilineal. Herein a new principle may be em- 
ployed. It is not necessary for the concentric 
lines or surfaces to be parallel. We may put an 
octagon inside a cube, and still another figure 
inside the octaojon. Thus throuo^h concentric 
Peas- work we begin to see form within form, not 
merely of a different size but of a different shape, 
and we seem to be looking into the transparent 
source of all forms. Concentrism ao^ain directs 
us toward the genetic center, yet by a new way, 
in the present Occupation. Hitherto we have 
seen difference of form outside the shapes, in 
separation, but now we behold it inside, the 
transformation is manifested as internal, even in 
the material object. 

We may observe, therefore, in Peas-work the 
real embodiment of the entire movement of 
Point, Line, and Surface, which has shown itself 
in the foregoing industrial Occupations. Behold 
the Point (as pea) moving out of itself to 
another Point and so producing the Line here ma- 
terialized ; then this Line returns into itself (like 
the Point) and incloses the Surface; then this 
Surface returns into itself and incloses the spatial 
form of the Solid. All this is represented sepa- 
rately, in material objects, yet in a single shape. 



372 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Thus it is manifest that Peas-work is psycho- 
logically the third phase of the separative stage 
in the reproduction of Abstract Magnitudes. 
Separated completely to vision, yet self -returning 
and unified are all of them — Point, Line, Sur- 
face. This return, we may repeat, is the char- 
acteristic of the third phase of the Psj^chosis. 

In Peas-work, accordingly, the reproduction 
of Abstract Magnitudes taken by themselves has 
completed itself. They unite in the form, yet 
the form is what holds them asunder and mani- 
fests them in their separation as well as in their 
unity. In Peas-work, therefore, the form has 
to show the Abstract Magnitudes, but previously 
in the useful industrial Occupations the Abstract 
Magnitudes had to show or to bring out the form. 
Yet in Peas-work also they bring out the form 
which in turn brings them out, namely. Point, 
Line, Surface. 

In a sense we may regard Peas-work as the tri- 
umph of the Abstract Magnitudes over the Con- 
crete, inasmuch as they take the solid and use it 
to manifest themselves. The ideal elements — 
Point, Line, Surface — thus indicates their mas- 
tery over the real, and subject it to their purpose, 
which is ultimately that of self -revelation. This 
mastery will come out more strongly in the next 
Occupation, that of Drawing. 

Peas-work is the solid reduced to its skeleton, 
to that which simply holds itself together, yet 



FROEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— INDUS TBI AL. 373 

appearing still in all its dimensions — length, 
breadth, height. This actual skeleton is visible, 
standing there with bones, joints, perchance some 
ligaments showing themselves to the eye, which 
may well wonder what it all does mean. A skele- 
ton of this whole solid world we may deem it in a 
way, a form concentrating in itself the simple 
elements of all magnitude. A transparent shape, 
in fact doubly transparent ; we may see through 
not only its sides, but in it we may begin to see 
through the whole material universe. 

But such is not yet the end: this skeleton 
which is still material, real, having length, 
breadth and height, is to vanish into a shadow; 
it is to become a veritable ghost — the ghost not 
the skeleton, of the solid world, which is thereby 
made to appear, is reduced simply to an appear- 
ance, and thus is compelled to tell the truth about 
itself. Herewith we begin to enter the Graphic 
Occupation — Drawing, which still reproduces the 
solid, but through the surface, line, and point. 
So the solid is projected into a surface in Draw- 
ing, but the surface is also projected into a solid 
which, however, still remains a surface. Thus 
our solid world is undergoing a deeper transform- 
ation of itseK, it is turning to an image or 
rcDresentation, to a picture. 



III. 

THE GRAPHIC OCCUPATION. 

Ill the kindergardeu we designate this Occupa- 
tion by its popuhir name, Drawing, which is, of 
course, to be retained. In the present work, 
however, the attempt is made to connect all the 
parts and stages of the Plaj-gifts by a terminol- 
ogy, in which their unity is hinted by the terms 
employed. Hence the above caption. 

This is the third stage in the total movement 
of the Occupations, whose essence is, as already 
stated, the reproduction of Avhat has before been 
given. There is a return to the Plastic Occupa- 
tion, which reproduces the solid, or specially the 
Gifts of Concrete Magnitude ; but this return is 
through the Industrial Occupations, which em- 
ployed point, line, surface, or the Abstract Mag- 
nitudes, as means. 
(374) 



FBOEBEUS FLAY GIFTS.— DBAWING. 375 

The Graphic Occupation is, therefore, the re- 
production of the Concrete Magnitudes in and 
through the Abstract Magnitudes; point, line, 
surface now take up and reproduce the sohd as 
their own, as themselves. 

Accordingly, the material object in Drawing 
seems to have three dimensions, but has not in 
reality; ^it is reduced to a seeming, an appear- 
ance—and what else is it? A manifestation of 
something unseen is all matter, which thus is 
itself an appearance. Hence Drawing is a getting 
at the truth of things, and is or may be, in the 
right sense of the word, truer than the physical 
object itself, which it makes seem to be, but not 
really be. Herein Drawing participates in the 
function of all Art. 

Abstract Magnitude has torn the solid to pieces, 
to very shreds, has dissolved it into points, lines, 
surfaces, and left it, first a skeleton, and then a 
shadow. But this whole solid world is now to be 
reconstructed after such a dissolution into its 
elements ; it is to be rebuilt and made over into 
the temple of Art, whose function is to reveal to 
man the divinely creative spirit. 

If we look back, we can now see that all the 
preceding Occupations, and the Gifts, too, were a 
kind of Drawing, or preparation for it, or in- 
timation of it. We noticed it in the industrial 
Occupations — Sewing, Interlacing, Paper-fold- 
ing, etc. We go further back to the stage of 



376 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

Abstract Magnitude, and observe the incipient 
principle of Drawing in Stick-laying, and indeed 
in all forms produced by combining tablets, rings, 
and seeds. In Concrete Magnitude, the Building 
Gifts ultimately go back to Drawing ; in archi- 
tecture the Drawing usually is made before the 
edifice and determines it, the surface-shape being 
projected into the solid one. The surface is ideal, 
and the solid has to be dipped into it and passed 
through it, has to receive the baptism of the 
ideal in Drawing, before the edifice or the temple 
can be constructed. 

In many industries of the present time, the 
work is preceded by a Drawing, which shows the 
form ruling the raw material. Thus, if the in- 
dustrial Occupations lead up to Drawing, the 
latter returns, so to speak, and reproduces them. 
Crude matter must be smelted by the brain and 
poured into an ideal mould through Drawing, ere 
it can be fully transformed by man for his use. 
So it comes that manufactures of a complicated 
nature require the draughtsman. 

Drawing as the Graphic Occupation is at pres- 
ent to be considered in its educative aspect as it 
is brought to the little child, to whose training 
it is to contribute. The first thing asked for 
must be the psychical process involved in Draw- 
ing, which also is to develop the child's Ego in 
its peculiar field. Here again we shall observe 
the threefold process. 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.-DBAWING. 377 

I. First is what may be called Free or Spon- 
taneous Drawing (not Free-hand Drawing, which 
comes later). Let the child take a piece of 
chalk or pencil, having a surface before him suit- 
able for his purpose ; let him try to draw some 
solid object, that is, project it into a plane. 
Thus he begins his acquaintance with his mate- 
rials, with himself; but he soon finds such ac- 
quaintance very limited, he has no possession of 
his material, none of his hand, none of line, 
point and surface. The child has found his 
limit, he is ready for help. Undoubtedly he 
loves to draw, so does the savage ; Drawing is a 
profound racial instinct. The children's Draw- 
ings have their place in the educative process ; 
they belong, however, to the immediate stage 
which must be transcended. The child him- 
self, properly directed, will call for the next 
stage. 

II. This is what may be named, in general, 
Prescriptive Drawing, that is, certain prescribed 
elements or principles control the previous Free 
Drawing of the child, who has therein run upon 
his limit. Now he needs, in fact calls for, 
instruction or prescription, which is nothing else 
than the experience of the past in the matter of 
Drawing. This twofoldness enters the present 
sphere — the activity of the child on the one 
hand proceeding from within, and the prescribed 
course or method on the other proceeding from 



378 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

without, which, however, is to be taken up by 
the child and made his own, internalized. 

In the Froebehan kindergarden the net-work 
of small squares is the fundamental prescriptive 
element in Drawing. This method has been bit- 
terly attacked and warmly defended, and the 
controversy is still unsettled. Undoubtedly 
children at school before Froebel's time learned 
Drawing without such net-work ; but he is look- 
ing out for very young children in this matter, 
kindergarden children, whose little hands need 
more help than those of older children. So 
there is a place for the net-work in Drawing. 

Still this method can be abused. Not too much 
of it by any means ; otherwise the very purpose 
of it will be destroyed. The kindergardner 
should alwaj^s keep in mind this purpose : it is to 
train the child to do without such help. Here 
again there is the process — the process of getting 
rid of prescription through prescription. The 
stages thereof will indicate this fact. 

Let us again look at the prescribed material, 
the netted surface, measured off on the basis of 
a square inch, which may be subdivided (but not 
too much). Thus the space into which the child 
is to project the solid object is meted and bounded 
for him in advance; the net-work is already a 
kind of outline into which he is to put the outline 
of the solid. In this way the child begins to get 
proportion, which depends upon a just measure- 



FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS,— DBAWING. 379 

ment, and for which he needs at first a given, 
ever-present standard, till his eye can judge and 
his hand can execute without any outside line. 

1. First, the child is allowed to draw/ree?y in 
this netted material, just as he drew /ree?y in the 
first stage without any such netting. What will 
he do spontaneously with these given squares? 
At least he will make their acquaintance and test 
them in a number of ways. Before long, how- 
ever, he will ask for the second stage of pre- 
scription, in which the element of instruction is 
more pronounced. 

2. On these netted hues the child is to make 
lines of his own in a prescribed way, so that they 
suggest forms, geometric or symmetrical. That 
is, he starts from a Point, and reproduces Line 
and Surface, guided by these given lines and 
surfaces of the net-work, till he makes a pattern 
or figure of his own. Thus he is getting the 
first control of the elements of Abstract Magni- 
tude — Point, Line, and Surface — for the pur- 
pose of Drawing, which elements are the basis of 
his future progress in this field. 

This is now called usually Froebelian Drawing, 
though Froebel's conception of Drawing was 
wider. He intended the net- work and its forms 
to be a transition to freedom (see Be7mmscences, 
pp. 234-5), and he claims that it leads to inven- 
tion, when the child gets possession of the in- 
strumentalities for such work. The same forms 



S80 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

can be brought out in Sewing, and also in Stick- 
laying, which, as already said, may be regarded 
as kinds of Drawing. 

3. Finally the child is to pass from these reg- 
ular mathematical forms into forms of beauty 
and of life ; in fact he will show directly his geo- 
metric shapes transforming themselves into a 
house or other object by means of parallel lines. 
Still he draws on the netted paper, which, how- 
ever, is the next thing to be discarded. 

Thus the child has gone through a process of 
development in which prescription is the dominant 
fact, yet always with the end-in-view, which is 
freedom. Even the surface (paper or wood) is 
prescribed. But now, having gained the use of 
his tools, pencil, hand, and specialh^ the use of 
Point, Line, and Surface, for reproducing the 
solid, he can begin the third stage. 

III. This we may call Free-hand Drawing, as 
distinct from Free Drawing, which is the first 
stage. That is, the hand is now trained to free- 
dom ; at first it was not free, except in an unruly, 
capricious sense. For the muscles must also go 
to school and get their education before they can 
be the ready instrument of the mind in Drawing 
or in anything else. 

Also there is freedom from the net-work now, 
as it has subserved its purpose. The question 
comes up, when shall this net-work be laid aside? 
No rule apphcable to every child can be given ; 



FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS —DB AWING. 381 

here the judgment of the living teacher is the 
supreme necessity. If the child be kept too long 
in the prescribed lines, his spontaneity is ham- 
pered; if not long enough, he will be helpless or 
capricious in his freedom. If the kindergardner 
is alert and skillful, she will have means or 
devices by which the child will of himself move 
easily, quite imperceptibly, out of one stage to 
the other, though sometimes a jump has its 
advantages. 

In the last stage we have reached the end and 
aim of Drawing, which was defined to be the 
reproduction of Concrete Magnitudes in and 
through Abstract Magnitudes. The question is 
often asked. Is the netted Drawing in Froebel 
really Drawing according to the given definition? 
Certainly it. is not completed Drawing, but a 
stage in the development of Drawing. The child 
must get posession of the Abstract Magnitudes — 
Point, Line, Surface — before he can draw by 
their means. This process of getting possession 
of them is a part of the instruction in Drawing, 
is, in fact, just the so-called Froebelian Drawing, 
which we have sought to unfold above in its 
psychical movement. 

With the present sphere, the Graphic Occupa- 
tion, we have not only come to the end of the 
Occupations, but we have reached the conclusion 
of the whole cycle of Play-gifts. The child is 
now to return to the beginning, he is to go back 



382 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 

and draw all that has been given — the Gifts — 
and reproduce them in this final form. He can 
again start with Ball, Cube, and Cylinder, and 
project these solids into a plane by means of 
his Abstract Magnitudes — Point, Line, Sur- 
face — whose use he has to a certain extent 
acquired, or is acquiring. 

The direct object of the Play-gifts is that the 
child obtain the mastery of Nature, of the phy- 
sical world surrounding him on every side, though 
at the same time they unfold him inwardly. But 
in Drawing he has reduced the whole material 
universe to a picture, to a shadow of itself, 
which he makes, reproducing the solid world 
as an image, an appearance. That is, he creates 
or begins to create anew, in his own forms, the 
earth and the heavens too ; he makes over all 
things visible and sensible, as if by a new creative 
fiat. 

Thus Drawing, of all these Play-gifts, calls 
forth most absolutely the creativity of the child, 
and this is its supreme educative value. It also 
exercises perception, strengthens observation, 
confirms memory, evokes the imagination, and so 
on to the end of the string of little psychologic 
arguments, good enough, but little. The one 
grand all-inclusive and all-coercing argument is 
that of creativity; the Graphic Occupation de- 
velops the child as a world-maker ; in it he be- 
gins to recreate all externality and to cast it into 



FBOEBEVS PLAT GIFTS.— DBAWING. 383 

an appearance. At the same time he is educating 
himself, transforming himself after the highest 
ideal, becoming a creator world-producing after 
the true image of his Creator. 

Accordingly Drawing consummates yet ends 
the discipline of the Play-gifts, in which the 
child, after a long, varying, jet ever-triumphing 
struggle for mastery over Space, Time, and 
Matter, shows his ability to fling the whole 
material universe into a shadow, a mere eidolon^ 
which he creates. Certainly in Nature he can go 
no further. 

But what next? Environing the child on every 
side as well as entering into his very being 
is likewise an unseen non-material world, from 
which he draws the mother's milk of his spiritual 
sustenance, which world he is also to assimilate 
and to reproduce. This we may call the realm 
of Institutions — Family, the Social Order, State, 
Church. To all of these, in one way or other, the 
child (as well as the man) belongs; first they are 
given him, then he is to recreate them in his own 
life. The school, yes the kindergarden is a 
phase or part of this Institutional World, which 
must first be given to the child and then must be 
made over by him. 

Froebel in the complete circuit of his educa- 
tional scheme, has likewise elaborated the means 
for bringing this Institutional World to the little 
child. Such is the purpose and scope of the 



384 PSYCHOLOGY OF FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS. 

Play-song as revealed in a well-known book 
of his (Z)/e Mutter-und-Kose-Lieder), called the 
Book of Mother Play-songs. Accordingly at 
this point the student will make the transition 
out of the Play -gift into the Play -song, and 
connect in thought these two grand divisions of 
the Froebelian svstcm. 

The preceding exposition has unfolded the 
successive or scientific order, which necessarily 
has its standpoint in the theme or subject-mat- 
ter. But when we come to the child, we must 
remember that he is all things at once, he is 
everything in its incipient stage ; hence he must 
have both Play-gift and Play-song together at his 
and their starting-point. Or, as we have already 
often said, there must be an inter-related order, 
which adapts the successive or scientific order to 
the child, who is to be always regarded as a 
total being or Ego. 

(As the present work on the Play-gifts con- 
nects directly Avith the Play-songs, the author 
may be permitted to refer to his work on the lat- 
ter subject, which bears the title, A Commentary 
on FroeheVs Mother Play-songs.) 






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